Last week I read a fabulous memoir titled The Girl from Foreign by Sadia Shepard (Penguin, 2009).I've read a bit of fiction set in India, but haven't found many memoirs. Shepard has such an interesting and complicated family history that India here serves more as a backdrop … [Read more...]

Besides reading, writing, and traveling, I also love ballet. From the age of five until twenty-one, I took ballet classes on three occasions, never advancing above advanced beginner. Needless to say, I enjoy it now as an observer.So last week I read Zippora Karz's ballet … [Read more...]

I recently read the following: If you're going to read one book this summer, you must read Say Her Name (Grove, 2011) by Francisco Goldman.To that I say, don't wait!When I picked it up last week, I knew it would be a depressing story. Francisco Goldman centers this … [Read more...]

When I was younger, in my days of naivete, I sought out countries that didn't have diplomatic relations with the US. At just 20 years old, I traveled to Vietnam and Cambodia and just took it for granted that if anything happened to me, the Swiss ambassador would come to my … [Read more...]