Ready for Fall

September, 2012

Every year at about this time I start to get excited for fall and begin to anticipate the upcoming season -- the weather, the clothes, the food, the colors, the holidays. I am ready for fall. Do you feel this way? Here in Los Angles the heat is intense but I am dreaming of a chill in the air, cozy sweaters, autumn leaves, and fires in the fireplace. It all sounds heavenly right now. Fortunately the September issues of many magazines are out and there are some very exciting things coming up. Here are a few that have got my heart racing...

MOVIES

"The Imitation Game" starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley
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Benedict Cumberbatch seem to be everywhere these days. In the film The Imitation Game he plays Alan Turning, the English mathematician who helped crack Nazi Germany's Enigma Code during World War II.  On the heels of his great role as Sherlock Holmes, he is once again playing a brilliant problem solver. Perfect casting. I can't wait to see this one.

 BOOKS

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Fall and new books just seem to go together. Here are a few that sound very intriguing:

Novels

Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Everyone in the book world is excited about a new book by Marilynne Robinson. This is the third in her much-praised Gilead trilogy.

The Dog by Joseph O'Neil
I loved Netherland by Joseph O'Neil. His latest book is about a New Yorker who moves to Dubai to escape his problems and finds himself strangely at home. If it's anything like "Netherland," it will be filled with beautiful writing, witty insights and sharp commentary about the modern world.

The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher: Stories by Hilary Mantel
After wowing the literary world by winning the Booker Prize two years in a row -- for "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up the Bodies" -- Hilary Mantel has written a collection of contemporary short stories.

The Children Act by Ian McEwan
This new novel by Ian McEwan (one of my favorite writers) is about a prominent London judge who faces the ruling of her career. The case is about people using religion to refuse medical care for their children and the life of an exceptional teenage boy hangs in the balance. This one sounds so good!  

 Cookbooks

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Plenty More by Yotam Ottolenghi
Yotam Ottolenghi is the owner of Ottolenghi restaurants in London and also a cookbook author. His book Jerusalem was one of the most popular cookbooks in recent years. Filled with fabulous middle eastern recipes, it is a must for the creative cook. His newest book "Plenty More" is a sequel to "Plenty," which was filled with delicious and beautiful recipes for vegetables.

Make It Ahead by Ina Garten
A new book by Ina Garten is always an occasion. After all these years, she is still my go-to in the kitchen. I have purchased my ticket for her book tour in November. I went two years ago when she was promoting her earlier book "Foolproof" and she was fabulous! In person she is elegant, very funny, and always down-to-earth.

Huckleberry: Stories, Secrets, and Recipes from Our Kitchen by Zoe Nathan
Zoe Nathan is a celebrity of sorts here in Los Angeles. She is a young baker who has three very popular cafe/restaurants in Santa Monica and has just come out with a cookbook. People are very excited about this. She is one of the many amazing young women in Los Angeles who have developed successful businesses and continue to inspire all of us!

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A Kitchen in France: A Year of Cooking in My Farmhouse by Mimi Thorisson
Mimi Thorisson is the creator of the beautiful blog Manger. She lives with her family on a farm in Bordeaux where she cooks and entertains with great flair. She shares her recipes and life style on her blog. Her new book "A Kitchen in France" is divided into four seasonal chapters and is part cookbook, part memoir. This book promises to be a beauty!

 DESIGN IDEAS 

Natalie Massenet's house in London
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The design magazines at this time of the year often feature inviting and cozy interiors. Fall is a favorite time for nesting and I love the idea of warming up a house with a little touch of red. Did you see this piece in Architectural Digest on Natalie Massenet's house in London? She is the founder of Net-A-Porter. The red chairs in her dining room/library are a perfect touch. And don't you love a dining room filled with books? Go here to read more.

LECTURE SERIES -- "CAUGHT IN THE ACT"

This is a popular time of year for lectures and book signings. I can never get enough of UCLA Professor Charles Batten's lectures and beginning in September he will be giving a fascinating series of talks on the subject "Caught in the Act." Each of the novels in this series presents "the mysterious relations of moral choice and circumstantial compulsion, of will and fate, in the lives of its characters." Our first book is "The Picture of Dorian Gray." The others are: "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad, "Ethan Frome" by Edith Wharton, and "The Ambassadors" by Henry James. Go here to find out more. As a side note, I just finished "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt and think it definitely falls into this category!

DANCE

Swan Lake
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The Australian Ballet will be bringing their groundbreaking production of "Swan Lake "to Los Angeles this fall. The original production starred Rudolf Nureyev and Margo Fonteyn and played at The Music Center over fifty years ago. This year is the 50th anniversary of the Music Center at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and to celebrate their big 50th they are bringing back this critically acclaimed production. I already have my ticket to this one!

Art

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at the Tate Modern in London
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Probably the art exhibition I am most excited to see this fall is Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at MOMA.  It originated at the Tate Modern and is opening in New York in October. In the 1940's, Matisse turned exclusively to cut paper as his primary medium. He cut painted sheets into forms of different sizes and shapes and arranged them into compositions. This was a blockbuster show at the Tate. I hope to make it to New York to see this one.

Theater

The play Wolf Hall in London
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If you can get to London this fall, the theatrical offerings are incredible. Hilary Mantel's books Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies seem to have taken over the London stage. They have been turned into plays and are now running at the Aldwych Theatre on alternating night. They are so popular that the run has been extended -- through October 4.

Happy September!

By the way, have you read The Secret History by Donna Tartt? What an excellent book! I loved it.

Writers on Writing

It has been a couple of months since the winter holidays and life seems to have finally calmed down enough for many of us to get back to some serious reading. I have been happily immersed in some very good books. I finished The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt ( which I loved -- more on that later), reread Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and am now almost finished with The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. This book begins at a summer camp in 1974 and follows six teenagers who remain friends over the next forty years. It is about the moment in life when we meet "our people," the ones we admire and want to be like. It explores the topic of friendship and how it is affected when some of the friends reach a startling level of success and the others do not. This book is excellent and I can't wait to talk about it with my book club on Wednesday night.

In the meantime, I was able to go to a literary event to hear Meg Wolitzer speak. She talked a bit about  "The Interestings," but mostly she talked about the writer's life. It was such a wonderful and inspiring talk. Meg Wolitzer happens to be very funny and very smart. Her topic? The creative life of the writer. She was so encouraging to the aspiring writers in the audience. And I think there were many. Because I do believe that in every passionate reader beats the heart of an aspiring writer. We were all ears. Here are some of the highlights of what she said:

She told us she feels so fortunate to make her living as a writer. Writing can seem a bit like an illegitimate life. I have heard other writers say this as well. She grew up in a house filled with books and a mother who was a writer. Her mother's first short story was published in the Saturday Evening Post and Meg reflected about a time when women's magazines were literary.

She talked about what a writer is doing when he or she writes a novel. A novelist is creating an entire world. And that world can be very different from the one that he or she inhabits. It has to be believable. A sense of story is very important for any writer since story is how we all make sense of what happens to us. A narrative gives experience shape and form. We tell about what we see, we shape it, and inevitably we change it in some way. And people seem to respond well if they think the story is true. She asked how writers can be important in this new post 9/11 world. That event created a lot of anxiety in people and a need to make sense of the world. Anxiety creates a need to know and to learn about people who live differently from us. It creates a culture of empathy. This is where the novelist comes in.

She recounted some advice she received from the writer Mary Gordon: Write about what is important to you, what you care about, what preoccupies you, what obsesses you. The books we love are about the things the writer cares about.

She went on to say that the book you write should be about a way of being in the world. The reader should not have to ask "why are you telling me this?" And then she talked about that pesky issue of a writer's voice. Establishing a voice is very important. Think of "voice" as a particular feeling that shines from a friend. Books need this. A novel is a concentrated version of who the writer is; it is a version of that person, but even more so. Meg Wolitzer knows she is humorous by nature and so she keeps humor in her books. Put your sensibility into a book; that is what makes it special.

When she talked about her characters, she talked about the idea of one thing contrasting with another. She said that "Middlemarch" does this very well. The contrast makes the other thing stand out. People are complex. For example, although some people may see a person as funny, that person may see himself as melancholy. Her advice was to keep it all in in your book.

I think most of us left Meg Wolitzer's talk feeling enlightened about her book and also inspired creatively. This doesn't happen all the time, but when it does there is magic in the air. It reminded me of hearing Helen Simonson speak about Major Pettigrew's Last Stand a couple of years ago (read more here). Like Meg Wolitzer she was smart, funny, and inspiring. I remember feeling very motivated to push myself creatively.

By the way, I loved "The Goldfinch." I believe it is one of the best books written in recent years. Apropos of what Meg Wolitzer said about the novelist creating an entire world, Donna Tartt has done this so well. And it is a world with so many layers. I am not surprised that it took her ten years to write. There were passages that moved me to tears, startling and breathtaking events that I never saw coming, and beautiful sections about life and art. I wrote about the book's Dickensian qualities here. Not surprisingly, it is going to be made into a film. I wonder if it is possible to capture this kind of a book in a film. Maybe a mini-series would be better. What do you think?

Please tell me what you are reading right now. And I would love to know if you liked "The Goldfinch." 

Dinner with Friends

Vita Sackville-West wrote, "It is necessary to write, if the days are not to slip emptily away. How else, indeed, to clap the net over the butterfly of the moment?" I couldn't agree more. There are special moments that we don't want to forget. Last week, I had a memorable night with a group of friends. There was friendship, good conversation, flowers and candlelight. I didn't want to forget any of it.

My book club is one of those joys of life that I cherish. We have been together for about 20 years and we treasure our friendships. It is one of those wonderful things that came out of a simple conversation. I remember vividly the day the club was born. A group of us, consisting mostly of mothers at my daughter's school, had breakfast together one morning and talked about wanting to create a book group. We were all enthusiastic and decided to take the plunge. We set a date, picked a location and chose a book: Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. The book club was born and has been going strong ever since. New friends have joined over the years, but most of that core group has remained. We have gone through the milestones of life together and shared many things. Books are our focus, but friendship is the glue that holds us together.

We meet at each other's homes for dinner and our gatherings are cozy, fun and always stimulating. The other night the meeting was at my house and because we were celebrating a member's birthday, I decided to do something a little special. I styled the table with flowers from Hollyflora, new place mats and napkins, and lots of candles to give it a festive feel. We were discussing a book, but we were also celebrating a birthday.

The flowers set the tone for the table 

Hollyflora specializes in groupings of small, romantic flower arrangements 

Even our book The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt looked fetching in this setting

I put out votives for ambiance

The flowers were so beautiful that I couldn't stop taking pictures 

Before everyone arrived, I lit the candles

They gave the table a warm glow

The green and gray napkins are from Lavender Blue, a store in Pacific Palisades that carries French linens

The flower arrangements of pinks, green, yellows and apricot complemented the linens

 The scene looked magical bathed in candle light

The table was ready and it was time for everyone to arrive. The doorbell rang and my friends walked in, buzzing about the book and excited to sit down and eat. It was a cozy and fun evening. The food, brought by one of our members, was delicious. We drank a good wine and toasted the birthday girl. We had birthday cake for dessert. And the book...we were all enthusiastic about The Goldfinch! We had a fascinating discussion about the first half of the book. So many parallels to Dickens, more than I had already discovered. And how did the author Donna Tartt manage to do such a good job of getting inside the heads of two lost, adolescent boys binging on alcohol and drugs? She writes about grief in a powerful way. We talked about this brilliant writer who cultivates such an air of mystery. She took ten years to write this book. So much more to talk about. To be continued next month when we tackle the second half of the book...

It was a night to remember!