No one seems to recognize the name of Betty MacDonald any more. When I was little, her humorous books had a place of honor on my mother’s shelves and her series of Mrs. Piggle Wiggle books were staple of kid lit in primary school. She was even responsible for a Hollywood film series. These days only Google and Wikipedia can find her. If you aren’t familiar with mid-20th century pop literature, Betty MacDona...
It seems half the world loves Julian Fellowes. A few mangy souls, like me, remember when he played Kilwillie in “Monarch of the Glen” but once he penned the screenplay to “Gosford Park” his acting days were numbered and his creation of of Downton Abbey and elevation to the House of Lords probably mean we’ll never see him in character again. Oh well. A wise person once wrote that authors, a...
The mercury’s dropping tonight and most Southerners I know hate the cold. We’re starting school later, turning on space-heaters, taping shut doors and doing every last thing we can think of to avoid exposure to frost. Well, some Southerners can’t handle cold. We can tolerate endless heat, corrupt politicians and bad manners from visiting outsiders but our homes and our lives aren’t made fo...
I’m usually a lukewarm John Grisham fan. I was a youngish paralegal when he hit it big with The Firm, but I found too many holes in the next few legal thrillers to enjoy them much. I’m too much of a southern girl not to love A Time to Kill and I like some of his non-legal stories. I love what he did for the Oxford American. All in all, you could say there are writers I usually like more but that...
“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.” So begins seventeen-year-old Cassandra Mortmain, the narrator of Dodie Smith‘s I Capture the Castle. You’ve got to admit that’s an interesting opening line. Only eight words and you know something unusual must be going on because who sits in a sink to write? Well, Cassandra does and she has a good reason to since that position catches the l...