Anne Faye

I was at my favorite local quilt shop , picking up some fabric for my next quilting project when I came across this novelty fabric. I have no use for it at the moment, but my younger son had picked up the bolt and carried it around the store. I didn't notice until we were at the register and he said, "Come on, Mom, you know you want it!" So, I am now the proud owner of one yard of Timeless Treasures Fabrics - Library CM8214. Maybe I'll make a pillow out of it or save it for some later quilting project. In any event, I do like the pattern!

The Wall Street Journal ran an article on Jane Friedman's home The House That Books Built. Don't you love that bookcase? - It is called "The Tree of Life." Book references even spill into the bathrooms. An upstairs bathroom is papered in wallpaper that resembles bookshelves, displaying the spines of fiction paperbacks such as Jack Kerouac's "On the Road." Downstairs, Ms. Friedman had another bathroom's walls covered by old manuscripts and pages from books such as "The Stranger."

I've always been fascinated by these local history books published about almost every city in the country. They offer interesting photos and text and shed light on some little known aspects of local history. The Barnes and Noble in Holyoke is offering an author event April 14th at 1 pm with Craig P. Della Penna, the author of the Holyoke book. For more info on the event, please visit http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/3226415

This comes under the heading of "Really Cool Jobs." The Wall Street Journal recently ran an article on "second careers." One of those profiled is the owner of Milagro Bookbinding. Dr. Jerome Goss was a cardiologist in his previous life. After he retired at age 69, he decided to devote himself to "saving old books." He attended a training program in Scotland for a year. Today, he runs Milagro Bookbinding, a one-man venture specializing in restoring leather books from the 1600s and 1700s. Using only hand tools, he works on books from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day in a specially designed bindery studio on his property in Corrales, N.M. . . . Dr. Goss says he has built up a steady clientele of book collectors and dealers who value his attention to detail and willingness to scout out rare materials. Recently he took a trip to Florence, Italy, just to buy marbled paper. Read the full article here: Every Patient Has a Story

From the Saturday Evening Post; In its nearly three centuries of existence, The Saturday Evening Post has published short fiction by a who’s who of American authors including F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Louis L’Amour, Sinclair Lewis, Jack London, and Edgar Allan Poe. Now you have the opportunity to join that illustrious line-up by taking part in the 1st Annual Saturday Evening Post Great American Fiction Contest. The winning story will be published in the Jan/Feb 2013 edition of the magazine and on our website. The winning writer will receive a payment of $500. Five runners-up will be published on our website and receive payment of $100 each. Entries must be character- or plot-driven stories in any genre of fiction that falls within the Post’s broad range of interest—one guided by the publication’s mission: Celebrating America, Past, Present, and Future. “We are looking for stories with universal appeal touching on shared experiences and them...

Reading today's paper, I came across this article by Barbara Bernard: Paris Bookstore Shakespeare and Co. is a Bibliophile's Dream She tells how she came to experience the bookstore and it's owner, who recently passed away: George Whitman was delightful. He was a few years older than we, and this article reported he was 98 when he died. He was a true bibliophile who had gained the name of “Don Quixote of the Latin Quarter.” He had little money and lived in a small apartment above the book store with his daughter Sylvia and his cat and dog. He decided more than a half century ago that he wanted to have a haven for book lovers and a place where writers and would-be writers would always be welcome. My husband told him that I was a journalist, and he immediately introduced me to several people sitting in various spots in the bookstore, reading or chatting and interesting. All were writers, some still unpublished but not discouraged. The bookstore was also a library, a...

Girl Reading: A Novel by Katie Ward NY: Scribner, 2012 I had seen very positive reviews of Girl Reading: A Novel by Katie Ward and decided this was a book I definitely wanted to read. A novel about the stories behind works of art that depicted girls reading? This was a combination of several of my favorite things - history, art, and reading. When I saw a copy on the "new" shelf at my favorite local library, I grabbed it with enthusiasm. I eagerly delved into its pages. The first chapter, based on Simone Martini's "Annunciation," painted in 1333 reminded me a bit of "Girl with a Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier. The story was engrossing, but one thing kept jumping out at me. There were no quotation marks and no attributions to speakers of any kind. It was incredibly distracting. While my brain finally adjusted to the literary device and it became less noticeable, it still seemed to distract from the mission of the book - to reveal the secret l...