Charles Bridge, Aristotle, and Italy’s Cinque Terre

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” -Aristotle

I have 3 things to share this week:

1) Happy news: Capitol Prague, a new restaurant and cafe in Washington D. C. / Georgetown, has bought use of of one of my photographs of Charles Bridge in Prague for use as a mural inside their cafe.

Capitol Prague Cafe

Isn’t it gorgeous? And, illy is my very favorite coffee, the one we drank at our home in Prague. Na zdravi! (Cheers!)

3 Essentials for Attracting Hummingbirds

“Hummingbirds open our eyes to the wonder of the world and inspire us to open our hearts to loved ones and friends. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and to savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everyday. The hummingbird’s delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest creation.” -Papyrus

Female Ruby-Throated Hummingbird with Jackmanii Clematis, from my former backyard

Friends often ask what is the one thing I missed most about the US during our 4 years in Prague. The answer might (or might not) be surprising …

The one thing I missed most over the last four years of living in Europe doesn’t have to do with shopping or food or the differences in cultures or people. Those factors all affected me, and yes, I missed everything about home, really. But the one thing I missed most was seeing hummingbirds. Hummingbirds only are found in North, Central, and South America.

To me, hummingbirds define summer.They’ve always fascinated me with their shimmering colors and incredible fluttering wings. They also symbolize joy and magic and wonder, and without them darting about, a backyard doesn’t feel complete.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird on Rose of Sharon

It isn’t hard to attract hummingbirds, but 3 things are essential …

30 Favorite Books for Summer Reading

There is a temperate zone in the mind, between luxurious indolence and exacting work; and it is to this region, just between laziness and labor, that summer reading belongs.  ~Henry Ward Beecher

The best way to summer read is to start with a stack of great books, the kind that will keep you reading all hours of day and night. The hard part is finding the great books …

Great New Books.org, a book recommendation site I help run

On Memorial Day, I finished a great book, Kate Atkinson’s new novel, Life After Life. As with all books I absolutely love, I couldn’t seem to put it down toward the end. My husband took this photo of me, trying to squeeze in a few minutes more reading. Apparently, Morris and Poppy like it when I read, too.

The Reading Scene at my house, with Poppy and Morris

I started following one of my friends, Nina Badzin, in her annual reading challenge a couple of years ago, to read 50 books per year. It’s been one of the things that has stretched me as a writer, a human being, and an online citizen. It’s also driven me to search for ways of finding great books.

12 Favorite Photos from Pompeii and Italy’s Amalfi Coast

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.  -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now that I’m back in the US after 4 years abroad in Europe, I’ve noticed thousands of photos I’ve haven’t gone through from my travels there. So, each third week of the month, I’ll be posting favorite photos from the travel archives…

Positano, Italy, from the Path of the Gods

I’ve posted previously on Italy’s Lost City of Pompeii and separately on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, but often the two aren’t connected though they’re merely a handful of miles apart. Here, find photos from both, one of my favorite regions in Europe: Italy’s Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast, south of Rome.

Amalfi, Italy

The Amalfi Coast is a gem with dazzling turquoise waters and steep, sheer cliffs that drop breathlessly into the Mediterranean.

“Positano bites deep. It is a dream place that isn’t quite real when you are there and becomes beckoningly real after you have gone.” -John Steinbeck, Harper’s Bazaar, 1953

Stunning color and views from Path of the Gods, Positano, Italy

Voice and The Golden Willow: Heather Webb’s Blog Hop

For those of you who know me and follow my blog, this post is for writing and for the novel I’ve been working on for the past year … it takes a long time and lots of feedback and writer friend help to get a novel to its best. This is another step in the journey made of hard work and long hours of doing what I love most. Thanks, as always, for your support!

Author: Jennifer King

Title: The Golden Willow

Genre: Upmarket fiction

First 250 words for It’s All in the Voice blog hop, May 16-17, by Heather Webb:

A Library and a Garden

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer 106 BC-43 BC)

For the past few months, my family and I have been in the process of moving across the world from Prague back to our native Ohio, USA. As I’m finding out, it takes a long time to move across the sea.

Rome, Italy

While we’ve been waiting on our beds and other essentials to arrive with the shipment from Prague, life has gone on. My boys are getting taller and growing. We’ve been making friends and enjoying the American way of living again. And now, eight weeks later, our essentials have arrived.

Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck and a Giveaway

Big News! Today, May 7, a great new novel is for sale in bookstores: CALL ME ZELDA by Erika Robuck. It’s about Zelda Fitzgerald, the wife of famous American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (of The Great Gatsby), and about friendships and how they can help us heal.

Erika and Call Me Zelda

CALL ME ZELDA is a very special book to me because Erika is my writing critique partner. Her friendship has been one of my life’s greatest gifts.

CALL ME ZELDA is published by Penguin / NAL and has been featured in some really great places:

Call Me Zelda featured in Glamour magazine

Glamour Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, … and would make a wonderful Mother’s Day gift, too.

I have an autographed copy of Call Me Zelda to give away to one lucky commenter at the end of this post (details below)!

What is it about? The story’s focus is on the friendship between Zelda Fitzgerald and a nurse named Anna, and it brings us into the years after the Fitzgerald party, after the Great Gatsby-like craziness. Scott notoriously used Zelda as his writing muse; Zelda famously fell into ruin, and after that, found her way into Phipps Psychiatric Hospital. From there, CALL ME ZELDA  begins. Through the lens of friendship, we watch each woman grow and heal in different ways, and strengthen each other over the course of the novel.

I particularly like the way Erika has portrayed Zelda, as sympathetic despite her illness and her famous antics. I also love the tenderness with which she writes about the Fitzgeralds together.

It is a must-read novel, on the ways we fail each other and yet can redeem those losses and support each other as well. CALL ME ZELDA helps shine light and meaning into brokenness, and opens up a new dimension to the Fitzgeralds and their place in history. I believe in its theme, that through friendships, we can become a better version of ourselves.

Personal Rave:   Erika is amazing. She is married and has three children (same as me, all boys), and has a passion for historical fiction. She is witty and sharp and compassionate. She has an incredible laugh. Erika is one of those friends I will always count as one of my life’s greatest blessings. Erika’s first novel with Penguin, Hemingway’s Girl, came out in September, which I blogged about here.

Watch: Erika on a beautiful video about CALL ME ZELDA:

To enter the drawing to win the personalized and autographed copy of Call Me Zelda, leave a comment (any comment) below, from 7 am to midnight Eastern time today, May 7. I will email the winner and announce it in the comments on Wednesday, May 8. And if you miss out on winning the copy here on May 7, we’ll be giving away another copy of Call Me Zelda at Great New Books on Wednesday, May 8. Thanks so much!

10 Little Things I Love …

“I still get wildly enthusiastic about little things… I play with leaves. I skip down the street and run against the wind.”
― Leo F. Buscaglia

Simple beauty

It’s very uncomfortable in my house. There is no furniture. We have walls and carpet and hardwood, and pets, and food, and family, and love. But it’s funny, after 7 weeks without our things, how much we miss a soft chair, a bed, a shelf full of books we’ve read and loved, a table around which to gather at the end of the day. Sure, we can live without our collections of things that make us comfortable, but it’s just not home without them. Living without is an opportunity to appreciate what it is we’ve missed.

So, this week, as I eagerly await the arrival of the sea shipment of things from Prague here to our home in Ohio, I am counting the little things that I love.

10 little things I love:

1) Carpet: (no echo in the house!)

2) Chocolate Chex (gluten-free, I have Celiacs, and they’re so good after years without anything similar)

3) Neighbors (Our new neighbors are amazing. Whether it’s the weekly boys’ game of ghost in the graveyard or being included in the neighborhood girls’ night out, the side-splitting laughter and warm friendships so quickly offered here are out-of-this-world.)

5 Favorite Spring Bouquet Photographs

Bleeding Hearts bouquet

Flowers… are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

After such a dark week last week, I need a colorful fix of beauty and light, one of my favorite kind, of flowers, flowers, flowers.

My hands are in the dirt more often now, as my family and I are settling into our new home. The backyard is a complete blank slate, with not even a tree inside the fence, so I’m busy working on a rose garden. It’ll be some time before the flowers thrive and look beautiful, but I’ve found some of my favorite photographs of flower bouquet photos from my former backyard garden … enjoy!

Tulips, Redbud, and Narcissus bouquet: the fragrance!

3 Important Things to Do When You Finish Reading a Book

The highest result of education is tolerance. -Helen Keller

Books help the world become a better place, I believe.

On a week when the world seems to be falling apart, it’s a necessary statement. I also believe what Helen Keller said is true, that when we read, we become more educated, our hearts become more informed and understanding and open, and we, as readers, are equipped to help make the world a better place. We need books.

Great Books on my shelf

Have you read a book recently? Did you think about it while you read, and after you finished?

There are 3 big ways you can help encourage reading for others and spread the word about books you’ve read, whether you liked them or not.

1) Join Goodreads or visit solid book sites for book recommendations. Of course, I love GreatNewBooks (I’m one of the founders), and also have friends who run SheReads and others. Set up a profile and start tracking the books you’ve read, or start joining in the discussions at your favorite book site.

It doesn’t take long. I participate in Goodreads via an app on my phone, and I participate at GreatNewBooks every Wednesday.

2) Make note of books you want to read by checking Want To Read beside a book on your stack or wish list, or chat with others about books they’ve enjoyed and recommend, either in-person (always the best way to engage about books, right?) or on an organic book recommendation site like Great New Books. Most readers love to hear about books that move other people. Don’t be afraid to share your favorites.

3) Share what you think about the book in a sentence or two, and rate it when you’re finished reading.

What did you think? It’s as easy as, for example: “I really enjoyed this book because of the characters and the page-turning story. I recommend it to readers who enjoyed Rosamunde Pilcher’s THE SHELL SEEKERS.”

Or if you didn’t connect with the story, don’t be afraid to share that either, for example: “I read about halfway through the story and felt turned off by the main character and the stiff dialogue.”

Bonus: If you happen to have an extra 30 seconds, find the book at an online retailer like Amazon and share your thoughts about the book, and rate it, there, too.

Above all, as with all else in life, be kind. A book is difficult to write, even if you don’t think it’s good. Most novels range from 75,000 to 120,000 words and take a year or more of work. For the large majority of writers, their income from writing needs to be supplemented by another job.

Why go to all this trouble?

Because in a world walking ankle-deep through a flood of lackluster books, we need and want to hear about the books that really stand out. Great books help make the world a better place.

So, the next time you finish a book, take a few extra seconds to share at least a rating of what you thought, and even write a sentence or two about it. Because, from what I’ve heard from my author / writer friends, the more ratings they get on their books, good or bad, the more the search engine genies are able to help point others to their books as a match of a book that might interest them.

What do you do when you read a great book? What book sites do you frequent, and how do you hear about the books you love the most? I’d love to hear your thoughts here. I’ll look forward to seeing you around at Goodreads and GreatNewBooks (my profiles linked at each). Thank you!