My dear friend Michelle visited earlier this month--it's an annual thing for us. We shop, have tea, see movies at the theater, watch tv and movies at home, and, of course, we talk, talk, talk. I look forward to it every year, and it's always hard to say goodbye at the...
This past weekend I accompanied Steve on his trip to NYC for the AALS conference. Once he was finished with sessions on Saturday, we took a long walk through Central Park and rewarded ourselves with afternoon tea in the Plaza Hotel's Palm Court. (We booked in a...
Tea and a Book is back!(I have to admit, however, that this installment is a bit of a cheat. You'll see what I mean later.)My favorite read of the summer (so far) is Kimberly Brusker Bradley's The War that Saved My Life.The story features many of my favorite things:...
For today's blog post I offer you a grab bag of happy-making things:TEA AND A GARDEN WALKThis past Tuesday I picked up my dear friend Michelle in Dallas and we had quite the tea adventure in Fort Worth. I'd read glowing reviews of Antique Outlet and Mitra's Tearoom on...
When I met with my editor earlier this month, she enthusiastically recommended this book by Marie Kondo (and was nice enough to send me a copy). As a lifelong clutter bug, I was intrigued by Kondo's technique of organizing your possessions by reducing to those that...
I just love a clever English comedy set between the wars, especially if it involves a country house party. After gobbling up multiple novels by E.M. Delafield and Angela Thirkell (each already featured on "tea and a book"), I decided to shake things up a bit...by...
Last week while Steve and I were in Las Vegas we made a special visit to the Mandarin Oriental to partake of their afternoon tea.It was amazing! Let me show you. (Click photos for a larger view.)First we were served perfectly steeped tea -- Steve chose the Mandarin...
This month's "tea and a book" recommendation has such a Christmassy cover, doesn't it? Or perhaps it's just wintry, but that's almost as good. Angela Thirkell, granddaughter of Pre-Raphaelite phenom Edward Burne-Jones, published High Rising in 1933 and went on to...
I first saw The Signature of All Things recommended at the blog of Stephanie Burgis, and knowing how much Steph and I have in common when it comes to fiction preferences, I figured it would be just my cup of tea. Prior to this, I'd never read a book by Elizabeth...
Early this month I listened to Ric Jerrom's exquisite voice performance of Pat Walsh's The Crowfield Curse while driving home from Iowa, and nothing I've read since has topped it. Though it's not a horror story, it does offer chills and thrills fitting for Halloween....
If you're an Anglophile and/or a lover of travel, books, good food, and good friends, you might want to take a peek at Susan Branch's A Fine Romance: Falling in Love with the English Countryside. Prior to this, Branch was the author/illustrator of keepsake books like...
This summer in Oxford I discovered Penelope Lively. In fact I gobbled up three of her books, utterly captivated by her appreciation for setting, history, and the imagination. I won't go into great detail about the plots because they really aren't plotty sorts of...
This month's post features books mostly set in Lyme Regis: Seems like various people have recommended Tracy Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures to me, and I'm not sure why I waited so long to read it. It's a fictionalized account of the friendship between early 19th...
I've been working on a story set in the 30s, which means immersing myself in books set and/or written during that period. Imagine my delight when I stumbled across D.E. Stevenson's Miss Buncle's Book (1934), the story of a woman in such desperate financial straits...
April turned out to be a very busy month, and thus no "Tea and a book" post. I'd still like to briefly mention my April recommendation, but I'll compress the details into a visual:If this photo gives you a happy tingle, then you certainly must read Claire B. Dunkle's...
