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The Bookish Side of Rollling Stone Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts is best known for keeping the beat for the world’s greatest rock ’n’ roll band. Now Christie’s has burnished his reputation bibliophile with a very successful September 28-29 auction of more than 200 of the dapper drummer’s rare books. The collection ranged from…

The Not-So-Great Gaetzby

F. Scott Fitzgerald has always been one of my favorite authors and The Great Gatsby a favorite book. It may have been the first Fitzgerald I read (though possibly that was The Diamond Big as the Ritz). Either way, I fell in love with Fitzgerald

The Notorious BAV

In life, a singular pleasure is to come into contact with an exceptional human being. To be invited into their home. To be exposed to their way of thinking, decorating, recreating. To absorb the wisdom that can only be the byproduct of a full life. That…

Icarus Reborn: The Short Life of Richard Russell

There is something incredibly poignant in the story of Richard Russell. Poetic, even. Kind of Holden Caulfield meets Icarus. Russell, of course, is the Horizon Airlines baggage worker who surreptitiously made off in one of his employer’s planes this past weekend, crashing it into a remote…

Nature Conspiracy

Because I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of girl, I try to find some sort of positive take-away in every situation. One thing I learned from disgraced former president Richard M. Nixon, America’s 37th: it can be handy to have an enemies list. Of course his got him…

Bargain Books a Reader’s Haven

There are few places I enjoy spending time as much as a bookstore, and used bookstores are my favorite. New books are certainly fun, but I love thumbing through well-worn volumes that have a past. Bargain Books on Friar Street in Van Nuys lives up