Entertainment

What happens in the Book World impacts my life. I am the author of ten books.  I am also a consumer of books, and read two books a week, often more. I immerse myself in articles and newsletters that focus on the Book World. The recent NYT article Barnes and Noble Sets Itself Free, dated October 17, 2023, is about how Barnes and Noble is re-decorating many of its stores to resemble small independent bookstores. It’s ironic that this behemoth chain wants to look more like the small Indie bookstores that it had once been intent on driving out of business.

Some claim that My Antonia, the third and final book of Willa Cather’s Great Plains Trilogy, is her finest work. Bohemian immigrant Antonia Shimerda is depicted through the eyes of orphan boy Jim Burden, who comes to live with his grandparents in Nebraska after his own parents have died. My Antonia is meant to be the story of Jim Burden’s life—his remembrance of things past—of the life that he shared with Antonia, her family, and with his grandparents.