Guess what? Today is not just Valentine's day —  it's the first anniversary of this blog!

A year ago today I launched something truly dangerous: A blog that wasn't about cats, politics, economics, celebrities, or the political economics of cats owned by celebrities.

Whoa! I have nothing against cats. I like them! They like me.

But I felt there was a place on the blogosphere for essays on a wide range of subjects linked only by the inescapable fact that I seem to see things in a manner somewhat askew. Rather like that sentence, if you get my drift.

One of the first blogs, and still a favorite, is: I'VE LOST IT! about how the detectives of Law & Order should come to my apartment to find all those things that are missing, because these cops can toss a crib and find anything. Besides, who doesn't love Olivia?

Another was: OH, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TOSS COINS! about losing my underwear near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. No, really.

Readers also liked IT'S CURTAINS FOR ME about my decorating disasters, and grown women wept over WITH A THONG IN MY HEART, about the heartbreak of buying a bathing suit.

Soon, comments started rolling in . . .

                                                          (Go to READ MORE)

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And I beg to differ with Motoko Rich, who writes in the Times ("The Book Club With Just One Member"), that there is a "different class of reader" — people who are more serious about reading — who don't join book clubs. People who feel that "their relationship with a book is too intimate to share with others."

HA! Actually, I don't beg at all. I loudly proclaim my right — and the right of book clubbies everywhere — to differ like hell!

Our book club consists of the usual suspects: Louise (hence the Geez), Betsy, Sharon, Diana and me. We had Silvia, but when she moved back to Italy, we kept International in the title. Because we could. We are (or were) all involved with publishing — as writers, editors, consultants, and yes, even publishers. We all love books. We lived for them, literally.

Like Ms Rich, as a child I read books by flashlight, or even the light of the radio. I knew there were secrets in those pages (They were!) that the grownups weren't telling me (They weren't!). The experience was all the more delicious for the naughtiness of it all.

But that was then, and this is now.

I still stay up late reading, but I use a book light. Now that I think of it, though. . . flashlights were a favorite prop of Nancy Drew, whose books my company produced for over a decade, although she usually used it for detective work.

Nancy very conveniently had no mother and a very indulgent father, so only Hannah the Housekeeper could stop her from staying up all night with her favorite novel. If Nancy had wanted to use a flashlight, Hannah would have brought some extra batteries and some freshly baked cookies. That women, bless her heart, was a real pushover.

Now, The New York Times may think that my love for Nancy (shared by Justice Sotomayer, among many, many other prominent women) makes me unserious about reading.

Unserious! Moi! You wouldn't say that if you saw my apartment . . (Go to Read More)

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