Tag archives: reading

Women Lead the Way
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   February 11, 2025

‘Looking at Women Looking at War’ If you read just one book, read Victoria Amelina’s Looking at Women Looking at War. When Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago this month, Amelina was a novelist living in Kyiv with her husband and son. War changed everything for the young woman who felt she had to do […]

Changing Leaves and Fall Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   December 3, 2024

‘Thorns, Lust and Glory’ The doomed queen, Anne Boleyn, is given another look in Estelle Paranque’s Thorns, Lust and Glory: The Betrayal of Anne Boleyn. This is an excellent biography which goes into great detail on Boleyn’s early years spent at the French court, and the lasting influence that made her a worthy prize/wife for […]

Cold Weather Page Turners
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   November 5, 2024

‘What I Ate In One Year’ Stanley Tucci is back with another memoir chronicling a year’s worth of meals in What I Ate in One Year. On and off the set, with and without a famous friend or two, Tucci’s memoir takes the form of diary entries as he dines in restaurants and home cooked […]

Australia-based Lola is One for the Books
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   September 10, 2024

‘Lola in the Mirror’ Brisbane is the setting in Trent Dalton’s Lola in the Mirror. Our hero is a 17-year-old “houseless” girl living in a broken car with her mother, who has never told the teen her real name. She promises to reveal the name when she turns 18. When tragedy strikes before her birthday, […]

Mandy Jackson-Beverly’s “Lunch with An Author Literary Series” at El Encanto
By Joanne A Calitri   |   August 27, 2024

El Encanto, A Belmond Hotel, holds a monthly “Lunch with an Author Literary Series,” led by lectiophile and host of The Bookshop Podcast, Mandy Jackson-Beverly. The program includes meeting the author, a signed copy of the book, the author interview hosted by Jackson-Beverly, a three-course lunch, and complimentary valet parking. This year saw A-List authors […]

Juicy Joyce, and Chaucer’s choices
By Steven Libowitz   |   June 18, 2024

Turning from the stage to the page, it took a full century for Santa Barbara to buddy up to Bloomsday, the annual celebration of the life and work of Irish writer James Joyce every June 16; the day his 1922 novel Ulysses takes place in 1904, and named after its protagonist Leopold Bloom. Dublin’s been […]

Summer Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   June 11, 2024

‘When Women Ran Fifth Avenue’ When Women Ran Fifth Avenue is a fascinating look at the rise of the department store in America. It will make local readers long for the days when we had department stores in Santa Barbara. Julie Satow takes a deep dive into the culture and rise of the female executive […]

Spring Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   April 16, 2024

I am admittedly a big fan of NY Times bestselling author Kim Michele Richardson and her Troublesome Creek books. Her children’s book, Junia: The Book Mule of Troublesome Creek – with illustrations by David C. Gardner – is out now and it is a delight. Set in 1936, it is Junia’s job to carry the […]

Literary March Madness
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   March 5, 2024

March is a big publishing month. I could not cover all the new releases below but will have more recommendations on my social media posts. Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera is an unexpectedly hilarious thriller. When Lucy’s best friend is murdered, Lucy becomes suspect number one. After all, she is covered in her […]

New Year. New Books.
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   January 9, 2024

Happy New Year. My hope for all of us in the coming months is that we embrace more stories, smart stories, entertaining and transportive stories. I’ve set my reading goals high to bring you even more recommendations. There is power, solace, and joy that comes from books and I think this month I have found […]

Half a Century Later: Memoir of War’s Woes and Wooing 
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 31, 2023

The veteran experience is also a jumping off point for The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, a just-published memoir by author-poet Carole Wagener and her husband, William Wagener, that has been called a personal snapshot of the turbulent ‘60s as framed through the hearts of two souls divided by […]

Medora’s Book Club  Opening at Casa del Herrero
By Joanne A Calitri   |   October 31, 2023

Medora Steedman Bass is the daughter of Carrie and George Steedman, owners of Casa del Herrero. Earlier this year, various papers and journals of hers were discovered at the house, which document her love of books and reading, and spawned the creation of a book club in her honor called The Medora Book Club. Medora […]

Fall Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   October 3, 2023

The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok is the story of Jasmine, a Chinese girl who has fled her small village to escape an abusive husband and to find her daughter that was taken from her and sent to America. With no legal credentials, Jasmine must work in a sleezy bar, turning herself into an object […]

Mysterious Setember
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   September 5, 2023

Amy Chua’s The Golden Gate is a thriller packed with historical tidbits, exploring race and class in San Francisco in the 1940s. When a presidential candidate is found murdered in a lux hotel, Detective Sullivan is called in to cull between the many suspects. Is it possible one or all three beautiful heiresses are involved, […]

Women on a Role
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   July 11, 2023

It is time for the annual Memorial Day party in an elite cul-de-sac in Jamie Day’s The Block Party. The group of close friends and neighbors gather as they always do, only this year’s party will end with gunfire and someone dead. Revenge is the name of the game, a game seemingly played by all […]

Summertime, and the Readin’ Is Easy…
By Kim Crail   |   June 6, 2023

We invite all ages to join us for our Summer Reading Challenge, to get you reading up a storm and enjoying programs that bring our community together.  For our youngest patrons, we will have early literacy classes all summer. School age kids are encouraged to keep up their reading habits by getting a free book, […]

May Bouquet of Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   May 9, 2023

Ivy Pochoda returns to the dark side of life in Sing Her Down with some very violent women. Two women are released early from prison. One returns to California and her mother’s home, pursued by the other woman. Florida and Dios circle each other like wary gunslingers in this cowboyesque drama. Dios wants to force […]

Springtime Reads
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   April 4, 2023

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of Hope through Unimaginable Loss by Kim Cantin is honest, heartbreaking, and inspiring. Cantin and her daughter survived Montecito’s 2018 debris flow, but her son and husband did not. In vivid detail she recalls that night, and the subsequent months as she recovered and desperately sought the remains […]

Book ’em: Chaucer’s Choices 
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 21, 2023

Santa Barbara-born author Caroline DeLoreto, a Functional Diagnostic nutrition-practitioner, LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) counselor, energy healer, and educator who worked as a health teacher at Santa Barbara Middle School for 15 years, has scheduled two local events to launch her new book. From Lyme to Light: A Spiritual Journey and Guide to Healing […]

March Madness 2023
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   March 14, 2023

Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb chronicles the heart-pounding love affair between Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Told from both Frank and Ava’s points of view, the book spans the whole arc of their tempestuous romance, from the slow burn, through the sizzle and the fireworks that ultimately blew the couple apart. This is […]