Now that it's September, summer is quickly coming to an end. The kids are back in school and the days are getting shorter. To help get through the coming cold months, I'm excited to read a few new books this fall.Alexandra Fuller's new Africa memoir is probably the book I'm … [Read more...]

Last night I attended a reading with author Ayelet Waldman. It was a fun, entertaining event. It was also something I sort of helped plan.Months ago, Ayelet asked her Facebook friends to come up with some cities she should visit on her paperback tour for Red Hook Road … [Read more...]

You don't know how thrilled I am to feature another guest blog post from Ali Swanson. Vietnam is very close to her heart in many ways and she's so thoughtfully written about her father's and her experiences there on this day that commemorates the Fall of Saigon 36 years ago. … [Read more...]

I'm so thrilled to share another guest blog by Ali Swanson, a good friend who lived in Vietnam in 1992. Here's Ali:Ahhh, the Hotel Metropole, a HaNoi classic!During my semester in VietNam, they were refurbishing this grand dame of colonial hotels.  Sometime in April or … [Read more...]

When Ali Swanson guest blogged yesterday, she sent me a couple of images of the old Magasins Reunis building in Hanoi. For the life of me, I couldn't successfully embed the link in the text.So here's one of those images.It was quite a beauty even in black and white … [Read more...]