The Book Blog Went on Summer Vacation?

Hey- wasn’t it June? About 15 minutes ago?
It has been a very, very long time since I updated. I’ve been reading books, thinking about them. I’ve been writing. Just- not particularly here.

I’ve been having entirely too much fun as the New York Beer Pairing Examiner. As I’d hoped, it’s challenging me to teach myself to be a better food writer, to articulate tastes and recipe instructions more clearly. (I’m also trying out new recipes, and photographing my dinner.) The Examiner.com community of food writers is a great resource too. It’s become a great source of new recipes to try. I’m looking forward to some festivals and fun in the fall. For the writing experience as well as the delicious beer.

Book reviewing for the Ledger is picking up. A bunch of reviews are due for the fall. (I swore October was farther away than this! Yikes!) I think the best part is getting to do another Kids and YA roundup! I’ve got two glorious tote bags overflowing with picture books and teen novels. I really can’t believe the gorgeousness out there in kids’ picture books. And I find teen novels tremendously relaxing. (Maybe it’s knowing that I’ll never have to suffer through an algebra class, or play volleyball ever again.) I think they’re soothing precisely because the social drama is so overwrought.

Still blogging and doing housekeeping for Women’s Voices, and helping launch a fashion industry blog.
And– look for a couple other bylines to appear in the fall.

Even though humid weather makes me feel like a zombie, I can look back and say, I’ve gotten a lot done this summer. Go me!

Published in:  on August 18, 2009 at 10:42 pm Leave a Comment
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Black and White and Dead All Over (review)

Black and White and Dead All Over
John Darnton
Anchor Books
Paperback, August 2009 351 pages
$16.00

When Theodore Ratnoff, assistant managing editor of the New York Globe, is found murdered in the newsroom, the murder weapon, an editor’s spike, seems a particularly grisly bit of poetic justice for a little-liked editor. Virtually everyone in the newsroom could be a suspect, even as the bodies, and tensions, mount. Covering the story for the Globe, reporter Jude Hurley is as stumped for ledes as the police are for clues. Jude works uneasily with Priscilla Bollingsworth, the officer assigned to the case, to chase a killer, while meeting deadlines, and finding a way to keep the imperiled paper running.

Darnton’s fictional New York Globe newsroom is absolutely right. Eccentric columnists and veteran editors combine nostalgia for the paper’s heyday with anxieties about dropping sales figures and the role of bloggers or the Internet. Without getting in the way of the mystery. Each character is perfectly New York, from Bashir the coffee vendor’s quips to Officer Bollingsworth’s awkwardness about her privileged uptown past. At times, the cast of characters is so crowded it’s like a confused Dickensian parody, but it’s hard to pinpoint any one character whose loss wouldn’t reverberate.
Betrayal, corrupt cops, old grudges and bloodshed keep the suspense churning frenetically in this well crafted and riveting tale.