The Southern Vampire Mysteries: How to Survive the Fall without True Blood
by Amanda Festa For the past five years, summer has brought many much-anticipated guilty pleasures. Beach days, BBQs, Sam Adams’ Summer Ale, sun bathing. …
Category: Books
Is Eustace Conway ‘The Last American Man?’
By Amanda Festa Elizabeth Gilbert’s biography of Eustace Conway began as an article for GQ in 1998, but her affection for Conway began some time…
Happy Birthday, Julia: Celebrating the Centenary of a Culinary Icon
by Amanda Festa One of my most vivid memories of childhood is the distinct voice of Julia Child wafting, or more accurately, booming, from my…
Cheryl Strayed Talks “Wild” and “Beautiful” at Harvard Book Store
By Amanda Festa As I approached Harvard Book Store in anticipation of hearing Wild author Cheryl Strayed read from her latest work, Tiny Beautiful…
Literary Fiction 101: A DIY Syllabus for Fall 2012
by Amanda Festa For students of all ages, fall brings the start of a new semester and, along with it, the crisp pages of class…
Bring It To The Beach: Oryx and Crake
by Katy Kelleher Even though I don’t like to call books “beach reads,” I do understand the appeal of the term. Some books are meant…
Beat the Heat with Cinematic Summer Reading
by Amanda Festa It is no surprise that the balmy weather of summer inspires many to spend lazy hours reclining in lounge chairs, inhaling an…
Southern Gothic With A Magical Twist: Swamplandia!
By Katy Kelleher Set in the sparsely inhabited swamps of the Florida Everglades, Karen Russell’s Swamplandia! is gorgeous entry into the American cannon. It is…
Literary Pit Stop: Trident Books in Boulder, CO
By Katy Kelleher Though I love to visit bookstores while traveling, it is often difficult to justify a purchase. After all, I have to carry…
Review of When Wanderer’s Cease to Roam by Virginia Swift
As travelers, there’s nothing more exciting than the moment of departure. Nothing compares to that moment when the wheels of our plane leave the earth,…