Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch: A Review
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Aaron Lazar's Next Big Thing
Update: March 19, 2013. Aaron Lazar's Next Big Thing
Aaron Lazar is one of the most prolific authors I know, which is why I'm so pleased to feature Aaron’s Next Big Thing Interview . I met Aaron on Gather.com, a wonderful and diverse online community of writers, six or seven years ago. Since then I have watched in amazement as Aaron delivers one intriguing, suspense-laden yet heart-warming mystery after another. Sounds like a contradiction, doesn't it? You'll have to read Aaron's work to discover what I mean.
The LeGarde Mysteries Series, Moore Mysteries Series, and Tall Pine Series -- each featuring different protagonists -- propel readers through the Genesee Valley, Adirondack Mountains, and even Paris, the city of lights. His latest book, For Keeps, features family doctor Sam Moore who wants nothing more than a quiet life with his wife yet is drawn constantly into one mystery after another. Please do check out Aaron’s Next Big Thing Blog and his Author’s Website .
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Marching with Las Madres

I'd like to tell you that I immediately dashed into the crowds to watch the inauguration. I’d like to boast that my Spanish was fluent enough to allow me to understand the speech de la Rua made from the balcony at the Casa Rosada. But the reality was that I was fearful of going into the city alone.
Then reason kicked in. I was going to be there for 10 days and Bill would be working most of that time. It was either head into the crowd or spend my vacation at the hotel swimming pool. I chose the crowd.
By the time I found my way to Plaza de Mayo, all that remained of the festive crowds were metal barricades and a ground littered with celebratory paper and political leaflets. I bent down to pick one up and noticed that it lay on what appeared to be the outline of a human body painted on the paving stones. Inside this outline were a name and a date. These painted figures were everywhere. When I straightened up, I bumped into a woman standing near me. I wanted to ask her what these figures symbolized but my Spanish was limited. I'd spent the last two weeks studying phrases like the one that discusses the peculiarities of keeping an elephant in one's house . . . not exactly the words I need now.
I excused myself for bumping her and began to walk away, but she smiled. Encouraged by the warmth of her smile, I decided to use my fractured Spanish to ask her what the symbols meant.
"Ah," she replied, "they are 'los desaparecidos.'" The disappeared! I shuddered. She then took me by the hand and lead me toward the Plaza obelisk where there were other symbols – she told me that the doves were actually kerchiefs. The "panuelos blancos" that symbolize the mothers of "the disappeared" who, since the mid ‘70s have gathered every Thursday in Plaza de Mayo to protest the disappearance of their children.
We sat on the grass to talk because Esther had phlebitis and though she had been warned by her doctor to stay at home with her leg raised, this retired history professor refused to miss such an "important event." She had traveled by bus since early morning from a mountain town several hours away.
We spent the rest of the afternoon together, wandering through historic sites and chatting, and as we talk the barriers imposed by language crumble. I bless the spirit that urged me away from the hotel and into the square. It has enabled me to do what I love best -- to see a place through the eyes of the people who live there.
© Beryl Singleton Bissell 2008
See Finding Time for God for Beryl's blog on living a contemplative life in a busy world.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Eating at the Aura
The restaurants in
The Aura restaurant from the outside gives no hit of the restrained elegance within. Subdued lighting, sleek furnishings, 2 bars that glittered like crystal, and small and intimate tables, behind which a screen shimmering with subtle colors and swirling shapes. The entire ambiance of the restaurant reflected "aura:" that subtle field of luminous multicolored radiation surrounding a person and other living things.
A slender and very tall young woman wearing a hand-crocheted white dress led us to a table to the rear of the L-shaped restaurant (we learned later that her father had purchased it for her as a gift and that she felt so special when she wore it). With only a few other patrons, Aura’s had the quiet we sought; but would it have the food we wondered?
Served with a fine Australian Shiraz, the fresh sushi crab rolls with wasabi, wilted spinach salad with pancetta and onions dressed with an exquisite balsamic vinaigrette, warm pita triangles served with roasted peppers and asparagus, humus and goat cheese, and three kinds of tiny burgers: salmon, pork, and portabella mushrooms with goat cheese delighted us. The food was delicious. So why the restaurant was so sparsely attended?
Our waitress DanielleIt was early for their usual crowd of nightclub goers, Danielle assured us, pointing to the bartenders moving into position and the members of a live band assembling behind the dance floor screen. As we talked, a friendly young man in a white coat introduced himself as chef Chad Leighton. "Such great food," we said. "This place should be packed."
Leighton replied that he hoped great food would lure a dining as well as a dancing crowd. Most people knew Aura as a place for the latter but they hoped to enhance that image. He told us that he presides over the menu offered at the popular Fish Grotto restaurant on the other side of the building as well -- both restaurants sharing ownership and kitchen.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Riding the Portland Rails
We didn't do any research on Portland prior to our journey there. Which is actually not a bad way to travel, especially in a city like Portland with its amazing transit system of 100 bus lines, 3 light rail lines, street cars and even a cable car – for it was while using this system that we often ended up having lively conversations with various persons ranging from the intellectual young woman who directed us to Powell’s bookstore and the skateboarder who waxed eloquent about Columbia River Gorge. “Man, you gotta see those waterfalls.”
The TriMet blows your mind. Ride it within the “
Bill and I rode Portland's transit system by day and by night, getting along very well without our rented car as we could ride to and fro within the city and way out into the suburbs. The only time we needed a car was the final day when we took our friendly skateboarder's advice and headed out to the Columbia River Gorge to see "those waterfalls" and the scenic drive toward
But, let’s get back to our first day in
Browsing Powell's is like a dream of finding oneself in a home where one room opens to another and floor leads to floor and you keep exclaiming "Imagine, this is my house and I never knew it had all these rooms." From religion to travel to memoir to poetry I wandered, finally settling down in the fiction section to scan a book of Flannery O'Connor's short stories when I heard my name announced clearly over the loud speaker. "Beryl Singleton Bissell. Please come to the information desk in the red section, second floor."
Juniper had managed to locate only one more book. Having seen me screw up my face when she'd produced the first galley, she pushed a second galley apologetically toward me. "I'm so sorry, I couldn't find the two new paperbacks. They might be on hold, or their sale has not yet been logged into the system.”
My husband Bill and I had gotten separated almost immediately upon entering the store (we have different reading tastes). Thinking I'd better track him down before we both passed out from hunger, I began cruising the various floors and sections. Meanwhile, Bill, having heard me paged, headed for the "red section," arriving just after I left. So for the second time that evening my name was announced over the loud speaker at Powell's, this time so that Bill and I could reconnect at the "red section." Locating one another was a much happier finding than my book signing experience had been, especially when we both agreed it was time to eat, which launched our next adventure.
Monday, June 4, 2007
Setting up house
I have been a columnist for the Cook County News Herald for the past 10 years and write frequently for regional and national magazines. My memoir, The Scent of God, was published in hardcover by Counterpoint NY in 2006 and in paperback this year of 2007. The
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