Here's my (notably singular and personal) assessment of the best books (mostly fiction, a few nonfics) published in the worst decade I've ever known.

If you write your own list, PM me and I'll link it here.

(Coming soon, the best fiction of 2009, the list of lists.)… Read full post »

Woke up and made the bed right away, for once. Even before the first coffee or bathroom visit.

After a midnight revelation and third thoughts about an author's request to use two images on the cover of her book instead of one, I cropped three images and composed a cover that's… Read full post »

It's a given that Oprah is a mighty force. Yesterday, she featured an author  who wrote a memoir 10 years ago, and that same book today is #85 on Amazon. Kathryn Harrison's The Kiss is going strong.

Oprah's new season's been on for several weeks now and I keep waiting… Read full post »

Fall 2009 big books are just around the corner. But before I start thinking about the newest William Boyd, Margaret Atwood, John Irving, or David Mitchell--Dan Brown who?--I want to look back on the books I read between June and last night. There were common themes in many of these titles,… Read full post »

We live in time; we understand ourselves in relation to it, but in our culture, time collapses into an ever-present now. How do we pause when we must know everything instantly? How do we ruminate when we are constantly expected to respond? How do we immerse in something (an idea, an… Read full post »

We saw two movies yesterday, which I secretly thought would be a lot of fun and very decadent. And it was, but that's a lot of sitting, a lot of tolerating the hooting of the audience at Julie and Julia, and a lot of scrunching down and looking up. My neck… Read full post »

There's a very interesting discussion going on on a Broadsheet article about which of the famous mother and daughter are "more interesting people," either Laura Ingalls Wilder or Rose Wilder? The Kate Harding article is ridiculous (why should one woman be "more interesting" [and therefore more valid?… Read full post »

I realized the other day I hadn't written an OS post in several months. That's the way it is with me--I get very enthusiastic for a while and then I get a kind of clutching anxiety about what exactly constitutes an acceptable kind of post and so I write nothing. I… Read full post »

This one-hour adventure sums up the whole enchilada of bookstore economics faltering. 

Mother's Day is tomorrow

I went to the most suburban of the Tattered Cover locations yesterday to buy Mother's Day presents. I picked up pretty notecards for my grandmother, and for my mom, Junot Diaz's The B… Read full post »

Sorry news from the Find Craig Arnold facebook page:

Our dear friends and family,

Though Craig himself has not been recovered, the amazing expert trackers of 1SRG have been able to make themselves and us certain of what has become of Craig. His trail indicates that after sustaining… Read full post »

From the facebook page "Find Craig Arnold" :

 Our dear friend and an exceptionally talented poet, Craig Arnold, has gone missing on the small volcanic island of Kuchino-erabu-shima while on a creative exchange fellowship. An independent expert search and rescue group is on the island looking for… Read full post »

Interesting how vehement she was in 1998 for airing & punishing pecadillos, and how vehemently she puports to care for "the good of the country" now by opposing torture prosecutions.

 "Do you respect the president?" The real question is, "Do you think he has any respect for us?"...I think h… Read full post »

A few kids from my kindergarten class were invited over to my grandparents' house and there was an angel food cake frosted with whipped cream, with banana slices and cherries formed into flowers all across the cake. We also had fizzy punch with fruit juice and 7-Up. I think the punch… Read full post »

Updated post: reordered the entries and changed the title.

This photo is  of my future cooktop island with open side for pots & pans. The pots & pans featured here are not my pots & pans. They belong to the seller, who has the most amazing eye for art collection… Read full post »

I haven't written in a while for a number of non-OS related reasons, the predominate one being that we've been preparing our house to sell and I've had some freelance work (yay) and then for the past five days I've been sick as can be with the same thing you and… Read full post »

If you see Harold and Maude when you're eight or  nine or ten, you laugh at a few of the gags and you perceive some of its suprising depth of feeling. But until you've had your heart broken once or twice, you can't really get it. That's the beauty and joy… Read full post »

This week's episode of Damages, the legal thriller on FX, broke with a sledgehammer the fourth wall between show and viewers with its product endorsement for the Cadillac Escalade, right in the heart of the story.

In one of two blatant scenes, a side-character is in a car showroom being… Read full post »

NOTE: the name of this post has been changed from The OS Link List: Oh-So-Versatile

You have the power to help promote good OS reader-driven features.

You haven't forgotten about personalizing your own OS link list, have you? A groundswell of OS users who use the link list to disseminate good… Read full post »

We went out to get a used car, birthday surprise, for our soon-to-be 16. So of course we didn't want to spend much money. It took hours at four places to find decently aged and priced cars. Finally found one, finally dickered on the price after many dramatic sob stories about… Read full post »

I want to learn how to write grants so that I might turn that skill into a job. A paying job. Which I didn't have while running  the micro press (fun, yes, lucrative at all, no).

My question is: If you are a grant writer, did you take formal… Read full post »

Sometimes I don't have anything profound to cough up. But I saw this and thought you might like it. Magical and hilarious. We thought we were cool.

Tracking Your OS comments

Make OS posts more pretty with CSS (easy)

Building an OS link list

Making the OS cover: A Primer… Read full post »

Her sons were crying when they never cry and a hurried priest they didn't know was called in and he faltered with his English as he scanned the small book for the right benedictions and I didn't know the words to the Catholic part but remembered with clarity the Lord's Prayer… Read full post »

Edited: Changed title from lackluster "A Throwaway Post."

Good evening to the insomniac and/or early riser OSsers.

I've just had my tylenol pm, but I'm buzzing from the Golden Globes, so keep your  expectations low, but I haven't written anything in days and so here you go as the first sleep… Read full post »

I got married at age twenty, much to the horror of just about everyone I knew. It worked out and even with the regular ups and downs of any marriage, I'm happy with my choice. But I would be adamant that my own daughters not marry until after they'd had a… Read full post »