Favorite Things, #3 & 4

One concrete bunny, from my grandmother's house up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Wits' End.



Liberace potholder from the Liberace Museum in Las Vegas. When I went to the Liberace Museum, there was a nice lady in a blazer who filled us in on all the details about each little brooch and outfit in the museum. For like an hour. When I thanked her and said she should probably get back to guiding other people around, she looked puzzled and said "oh, I don't work here dear!" and then she pulled out a knife and stabbed us. Okay, not the last part.

Favorite Things, #1 & 2

This is a knife given to me by my friend Katharine Weber. She gave it to me when I admired it during a visit to her house in Connecticut. I should have admired something fancier! If you come to my house and use it, you can only use it to slice tomatoes because it clearly says on the punch-out blade "TOMATE" which my fact-checkers tell me is French for "tomato." So don't screw it up if you come visit.


This is a little geegaw given to me by my long-lost friend Quelita. She gave it to me right before we had lunch at Chez Panisse. I have no idea what it actually is. It's about an inch and a half tall and it's silver over some sort of stone. I can't read the stamp on the bottom, so I just know it's one of those things people take to Antiques Roadshow and it turns out to be the top of the Romanoff royal scepter or something. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

The Bookcase Project :: Bookcase 3

Bookcase 3, Shelf 1: Byatt, AS - Dibdin, Michael - Doty, Mark
Quantity: 27 / Quantity Read: 18
Candidate: The Last Thing He Wanted, Joan Didion

Bookcase 3, Shelf 2: Doty, Mark - Ellis, Bret Easton
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 23
Candidate: Oscar Wilde Discovers America, Louis Edwards


Bookcase 3, Shelf 3: Ellroy, James - Firbank, Ronald
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 13
Candidates: All of the Firbanks
Also on this shelf: one graphite on wood painting by Jeremy Lehmann

Bookcase 3, Shelf 4: Fischer, Tibor - Ford, Ford Madox
Quantity: 17 / Quantity Read: 10
Candidates: I Wake Up Screaming, Steve Fisher; Not Now But Now, MFK Fisher
Also on this shelf: a television, a cable box, a rock from Eureka Springs, Arkansas


Bookcase 3, Shelf 5: Ford, Catherine - Gaitskill, Mary
Quantity: 29 / Quantity Read: 22
Candidate: The Life to Come, EM Forster

Bookcase 3, Shelf 6: Gaitskill, Mary - Gilchrist, Ellen
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: Collected Stories, Gabriel Garcia Marquez; Age of Miracles, Ellen Gilchrist


Bookcase 3, Shelf 7: Gilchrist, Ellen - Greene, Graham
Quantity: 33 / Quantity Read: 15
Candidates: all of the Henry Green books

Just in case some of you bitches didn't believe me...

Here I am holding the regional Emmy I was the Creative Director for! My speech would have been:

I'd like to thank everyone I've ever known EXCEPT FOR the following people.... (redacted)

The Bookcase Project :: Bookcase 2

Bookcase 2, Shelf 1: Byatt, AS - Windham, Donald (subj: Capote, Truman)
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: Three by Cain, James M Cain; God's Little Acre, Erskine Caldwell

Bookcase 2, Shelf 2: Moates, Marianne (subj: Capote, Truman) - Carey, Peter
Quantity: 16 / Quantity Read: 16
Candidates: none



Bookcase 2, Shelf 3: Carey, Peter - Chabon, Michael
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 13
Candidates: Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather

Bookcase 2, Shelf 4: Chabon, Michael - Chekhov, Anton
Quantity: 17 / Quantity Read: 15
Candidate: Oh What a Paradise it Seems, John Cheever



Bookcase 2, Shelf 5: Chekhov, Anton - Compton-Burnett, Ivy
Quantity: 20 / Quantity Read: 12
Candidates: all of the Compton-Burnetts (jealous, Lauren?), The Black Monk, Anton Chekhov

Bookcase 2, Shelf 6: Compton-Burnett, Ivy - Crews, Harry
Quantity: 18 / Quantity Read: 8
Candidates: all of the Compton-Burnetts; Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, Stephen Crane



Bookcase 2, Shelf 7: Crews, Harry - Dibdin, Michael
Quantity: 20 / Quantity Read: 11
Candidates: Two Years Before the Mast, Richard Henry Dana Jr
Mysteriously missing from this shelf: most of my Pirates! books. Hmmmm.