My last post about why I chose to write about kidnapped kids and serial killers is up on my author blog at www.kristibelcamino.com. The book is not gruesome. I hope it is touching and tried to include parts of my world from this blog, some style and food, even recipes. But essentially it is about a reporter’s struggle to find peace.
If you like to read, check out the post.

LESSONS FROM MADAME CHIC:

Thanks to everyone for entering. The comments on what chic was were fantastic and I really enjoyed reading them. I used the random generator to pick a number between 1 and 25 to pick my winner. The first person to enter the contest (after me and stephanie commented) was considered 1 and then so on down the line.

We had 25 people enter the contest. If you count down from the top (skipping the first two comments by me and Stephanie), you come to Kristina! at number 16. Congratulations! You’ll love Jennifer’s book.

I'm trying to look tough like Skully from the X Files

Please pop on over to www.kristibelcamino.com for Part II of why I wrote “Blessed are the Dead.” You can also click here.

AND IMPORTANT – IMPORTANT – IMPORTANT: Today is the last day (until midnight) you can enter the drawing for a copy of Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer L. Scott. Just enter a comment here to quality. I’ll announce the winner in the morning.
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It seems like such a stretch to my readers on this blog why I would go from writing about style and European chic to serial killers and kidnapped kids. Well, here’s a bit about why:

www.kristibelcamino.com

I had been eagerly anticipating the publication of Jennifer Scott’s “Lessons from Madame Chic” for months, so as soon as it became available on Amazon I snatched it up. It arrived in the mail on Tuesday and by Wednesday morning I had tore through it.

Not surprisingly, within a day of its release it hit #2 on the Amazon list! Congratulations Jennifer!

The inspiration for her book stems from a series of posts on her blog, The Daily Connoisseur, about living in Paris as an exchange student. The series was so popular that readers, such as me, clamored for more. In response, Scott wrote this book. It was all I had hoped for and more.

Well, dear readers, the good news is that the lovely and talented Scott has offered to give away a copy of her book to one lucky reader. All you have to do is leave a comment on what chic is to you and I’ll enter you in a random drawing. You have until Dec. 5th to enter.

(PS If you don’t you see your comment posted immediately can you please email me at mammaitaliana23@gmail.com. For some reason I get several hundred spam emails a day and would hate to miss your entry.)

Below is the review I posted on Amazon and a link to purchase this little lovely yourself if you don’t want to wait and see if you have won. I have a huge collection of books on French Chic and this little gem has a prominent spot on my bookshelf among them.

This is the type of book I want to give my daughters on their 16th birthdays – a guide to living with passion. It is a beautifully written how-to manual on squeezing every last drop of pleasure out of life. This little book is chock full of relevant details and advice on the secrets that make Parisian’s so confident, content, and chic.
Every single subject in this book is something I want to teach my daughters.

Brava!

Dearest readers … I’m starting to do book reviews on my blog related to reading and writing so if you have a chance hop over there and weigh in. Thanks
Kristi

 BOOKS

Books make me happy.

Really, they make me more than happy.

They enrich my life in so many ways.

They inspire me. They are my friends. They are my comfort. They are my pleasure.

Once I rented a room in a sketchy part of L.A. based on the home’s abundance of books.

I had found a card tacked near the bathroom of an artsy coffeehouse advertising the room for rent.

The day of my appointment to view it, I hesitantly walked up the house’s stone steps, wary because of the rough neighborhood around it. Through a double dead-bolted screen door with thick bars, I saw a small woman with long red hair and a miniskirt vigorously vacuuming the living room rug.

Beneath a fringe of red bangs, she wore dark sunglasses. A cigarette hung from one corner of her mouth.

After a few minutes of knocking and ringing the doorbell, she noticed me.

Inside the front door, a small living room had an upright piano against one wall. On the opposite wall hung an art piece her famous father had made. It was the silhouette of a shapely woman made from spray painted silver cigarette butts.

As she showed me around, the woman never removed her dark glasses.

I had stepped into another world.

What ultimately sold me were the words that came out of her mouth as she directed me to a bedroom door:

“And this is our nonfiction library.”

Bookshelves from floor to ceiling lined every wall.

By the time she directed me to the fiction library (two minutes later), I was writing out a check.

I moved in that weekend.

It was an easy move. I had been staying with a friend and all my belongings were already in my car.

My large upstairs bedroom engulfed my few belongings.

On one wall I set up my radio, stacking CDs beside it on the floor. I propped a few of my religious themed red candles with saints and the Virgin Mary on the window sills.

My clothes hung in the closet above a footlocker that contained a few mementos.

I placed my roll-up futon bed in the middle of the floor. Right near where my head would lie, against the floor on one wall, I lined up all my books — Anais Nin, Hemingway, Jack Kerouac, Isak Dineson, Baudelaire, Tom Wolfe, Umberto Eco, Truman Capote, Hermann Hess, Ayn Rand, S.E. Hinton — so they would be the first things my eyes saw upon awakening.

On My Nighstand (& floor)

In the living room

In the living room

I’m just going to apologize right off the bat for this post. My book situation is out of control. Pure chaos. Overflowing with library books, books I’ve bought and books I’ve borrowed. For some bizarre reason, all of the books on my waiting lists at the library all decided to come in at once. Several are in the exact same genre of the novel I am writing: girl crime reporter, so they are really considered research.

I have included pictures of them all (see the second to last picture for an idea of the chaos), but I will briefly give a summary of those that I have already read. I  read and loved Foreign Tongue by Vanina Marsot. I recommend it to all Francophiles.

Am currently reading Villa Mirabella from one of my favorite authors in the Italian-American fiction genre, Peter Pezzelli. For some reason, possibly that the main character is a man in his 30s, I keep losing interest in this one.

The one that has me completely caught up in the character’s world is Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum. One of my bookclubs chose this and I borrowed it, so I am making it priority one so I can return it and let someone else in bookclub borrow it. (My second bookclub meets this week and I will have a new book from them, as well, just to add to the madness!)

I also finished “Which Brings Me to You” By Steve Almond and Julianna Baggott. I must say the whole concept of a book based entirely on correspondence was intially a complete turnoff, but the writing is so wonderful I ended up completely engrossed and loved the book. I can’t wait to read more by Baggott.

I also read Becoming A Writer (Dorothea Brande) and On Becoming a Novelist (John Gardner). Both were so-so, I guess. I also read Mark Bittman’s Quick & Easy Recipes and copied down a few of them. Behind that book in the picture you can see some photocopies I made of recipes from the French Women Don’t Get Fat Cookbook. I think I copied about 5 of them for future reference before turning the book back into the library.

The other books on my nightstand (Cheri and The Things They Carried and the New Yorker anthology) are all books I bought, so I may not get to them for quite some time since I have to read the library books which have due dates first!

On My Nightstand: I have two stacks this week. The first is my writer’s reference books I’m reading. The second is the fiction stack.

 The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauer – I’m about half way through this. At first I didn’t want to keep reading, but now I’m glad I did. It’s a little, teeny, tiny bit too sentimental, but I’ll keep going. 

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver– I was on the wait list at the library forever for this one. Now that I have it, I’m not itching to read it, but will because it has a wait list so I can’t renew it and have to turn it in in about 10 days.

Little Altars Everywhere by Rebecca Wells– I borrowed this from my SIL, so probably won’t read it in a hurry as I have other books with due dates.

The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson– Bought this at the thrift store after seeing on FB that an author I love – Marisa de los Santos is reading this author.

The Nautical Chart by Arturo Perez-Reverte — I adore this author and snatched this up at the thrift store. Also in a holding pattern until the library books and book club books are read. I can’t complain — I love having TOO MANY good books waiting beside my bedside to read! I am going to bring this with me on my vacation to California in a few weeks.

REMINDER: PLEASE let me know if you would like to participate in the Chic Friends Spring Edition.

email me at mammaitaliana23@gmail.com

Thanks!

I’m happy to report that I had to change out of my jeans in the afternoon and put on a black jersey skirt for my Sunday dinner guests because it was soooo hot! Yea. It is about time.

We had roast (the fail proof roast recipe is in my book); potatoes, carrots, salad, rolls and Dairy Queen for dessert. Oh, and of course, wine!

After church and between dinner, I attended a writer’s workshop and got some good resources for finding an agent and getting published (my fiction novel).

On My Nightstand:

On My Nightstand:

The God of Small Things – One of my book clubs picked this. I’m about halfway into it, though I think I may have read it in the past. It is good, but not something I can’t wait to get back to every night.

Reading Lolita in Tehran — A thrift store buy I have just barely begun — on the back burner for now. So far, it seems like it is going to be really good.

Self-Editing for Fiction Writers — I bought this on the recommendation from Phyllis Bourne (see side bar) who is a published author. I read the first chapter but am saving the rest for when the first draft of my novel is complete.

The Nautical Chart by Arturo Perez-Reverte — I adore this author and snatched this up at the thrift store. Also in a holding pattern until the library books and book club books are read. I can’t complain — I love having TOO MANY good books waiting beside my bedside to read!

My Spanish Book — I realized that outside my normal life, I have room for one great passion — This year it is completing my novel. Next year will be studying Spanish again. I am the type of person who becomes so immersed in what they are doing I have a hard time spreading myself out.

This is why I quit my job as a newspaper reporter when I had kids. As a reporter, I was obsessed! It consumed my entire life. When I had children, that passion shifted to them. There was no room for both. A friend who knew me well told me she wasn’t surprised that I had to quit my job because she knew me as having so much passion for what I did that she couldn’t imagine me doing both.

MY DVD: has been neglected. I don’t watch very many movies when it is summer and so nice out.

On My Nightstand

Paris Hangover by Kirsten Lobe — I heard about this  book from the lovely Fiona from La Vie en Fifi. Thank you Fiona, because this book was soooo entertaining. I loved it. I absolutely loved living vicariously through this woman’s book, which I suspect is a roman a clef, but she claims is complete fiction. At first, I resisted her witty  humor, thinking to myself, oh, she’s trying too hard to be funny, I’m not going to laugh!
That changed. Only a short way into it, I was sitting in my car waiting to pick up my child from school and found myself howling in laughter while reading this book. People walking by probably thought I had gone off the deep end. Oh, if only I could be that funny in writing my novel. She really is brilliantly funny and anyone who loves Paris should read this.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson— My SIL loaned me this, so sadly it is on the  back burner while I read my library books, although one of my bookclubs meets on it in a few weeks so I will kick it up in priority. I’ pick it up whenever I get the chance and am about 1/5 th of the way through it and really, really like it so far.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova. I’ll be honest here. I’ve been anxious, really drooling actually, to read this book for about 5 months. I was no. 586 or something on the library wait list and it finally came in. I want to stop EVERYTHING in my life and read it RIGHT NOW.  But I’m restraining myself. I’m hoping against hope that it is as good as her book The Historian, which I still count as one of my favorite books (warning with that book you better like vampires!) I don’t even remember if this book is a vampire one or not. I don’t care, I just like this author!

Nurture Shock – my neighbor loaned me this and I am looking forward to reading it. Anything about parenting is worth checking out since my kids didn’t come with an owner’s manual.

Reading Lolita in Tehran — A thrift store buy I have just barely begun — on the back burner for now. So far, it seems like it is going to be really good.

The Nautical Chart by Arturo Perez-Reverte — I adore this author and snatched this up at the thrift store. Also in a holding pattern until the library books and book club books are read. I can’t complain — I love having TOO MANY good books waiting beside my bedside to read!

In my DVD Player

I mentioned last week that I saw “State of Play” with Russell Crowe, but I also watched “A Serious Man” — a Coen brothers film — this weekend. What a bizarre movie. It began strangely and ended strangely. I liked it, but felt like it was unfinished .. it sort of left me hanging a bit too much. I loved the Midwestern angle, though, because that is now where I live, so I could appreciate a lot of the references, which I always like with Coen films.