GIVEAWAY: LES MISERABLES by Victor Hugo

  Thanks to the fine folks at Penguin Classics, I have one copy of a new translation of Victor Hugo’s classic to giveaway.       To enter: 1) Share this giveaway. 2) Leave a comment, with a link to your “share” and please include your email so I can tell you you’ve won. 3) Sing…

Parisian Art Heists

  Unbecoming by Rebecca Scherm In a dusty corner of Paris, Grace works in an antique repair shop. She fixes the tiny baubles on chandeliers, the cracking of gilt frames and the prongs of antique jewelry. But Grace is not just a woman having a youthful adventure. But behind her small tools and magnifying glass,…

REVIEW: HOW TO LIVE, OR, THE LIFE OF MONTAIGNE by Sarah Bakewell

I must say, I prefer biographies of this sort.  It’s far too arrogant for a biographer to think they can just begin at the beginning and go from there.  Bakewell instead takes a more meaningful approach to a thinker, philosopher, and writer four-hundred years and a language removed.  She drops in, like a neighbor stops…