Bookworm Press

The city of  Los Angeles has many faces. Some people see it as a cancerous urban sprawl, with awful

rush hour traffic, bad air, and crime. For others it’s the glitz of Hollywood, the metropolis of business. It is all these things, but the city, including its neighboring areas, is also one of the most important cultural centers of the world. What?! I hear some people call. Yes, and I repeat it: Los Angeles is one of the most important centers of art, architecture, music, and literature. It has some of the most interesting and amazing museums, theaters, and art galleries. If you do just a little of research, you’ll find out that many of the world’s most famous writers, musicians, singers, sculptors, painters, and other artists have at one time or the other called Los Angeles their home. So, move aside San Francisco and New York! Just kidding.

Of course, the negative sides of Los Angeles do exist. It is a sometimes ugly urban sprawl and anybody who is forced to drive on the freeways during rush hours knows the challenge. And let me tell you, when I first came to Los Angeles over thirty years ago, I told myself that the one city I never wanted to live in was Los Angeles. Well, famous last words. I changed my mind and here I am.

There is a secret about Los Angeles. Well, it’s actually no longer a secret. In the midst of cars, gasoline fumes, skyscrapers (some of the world’s most beautiful, by the way), and clogged freeways, you find amazing treasures. In two of my last posts, I wrote about the beautiful Huntington Library and gardens in Pasadena.

Today, I want to show you another treasure–the Los Angeles Central Library downtown with one of the most extensive collections of books, maps, and works of art. It’s not only a repository of literature, art, and culture, but an architectural landmark. It has been designated a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument. And I have to admit (and hang my head in shame) that after living here for over two decades, this is the first time I have visited the main library. I’ve never been without a library card but I have always frequented my local library in Santa Monica. The main reason was that driving downtown and parking there can be such a hassle. But now, that we have a new train line that connects Santa Monica with downtown L.A., the journey is a breeze. And the last station of the newly opened Expo line is just a couple of blocks away from the library.

So yesterday, I embarked on the adventure and here are some pictures.

The new train! Expo Line Santa Monica to Downtown Los Angeles

Left: View from the train

Most of the descriptions below are from the walk-in tours you can either to take on your own or with a docent.

And here it is: Main Entrance from Hope Street

The main lobby with the rotunda, wall paintings, and chandelier

There are three sculptures by artist Lee Lawrie. This marble figure symbolizes what the Library represents. In her right hand is a book with quotations in five languages. In her left hand is a torch which represents civilization’s power over land and sea. The crown contains a miniature model of the Library–two angels for the City of Los Angeles and the bear and star for the State of California.

How many of you remember this? I do! When I did research in my early college years, that’s how we found the books, by going through the card catalog, often very tedious and painstaking work. Nowadays, this is merely a nice memory as we breeze through the search engine on our computers!

I hope you enjoyed the short tour through one of the pearls of Los Angeles. If you want to know more about the library and its history: https://www.lapl.org/branches/central-library

One of my favorite places in the southern California area is the Huntington Library. “Library” is almost a misnomer, if you think of a regular public library. The Huntington Library is a vast landscape with gardens, museums, coffee shops, pavilions and more. It’s almost impossible to see everything in one visit and once you are there, you will want to come back for more. The first time I visited this amazing place was with my good friend Shawn Gadberry and we focused on the valuable paintings, some of the gorgeous gardens, such as the one devoted to Shakespeare.

The Picture Gallery

Pinkie by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough (the painting, of course)

One of the many gorgeous gardens

The Bard

After all this food for the soul and spirit in this exciting environment, we also needed food for the body. The Rose Cafe serves the most delicious and very extensive English Afternoon Tea.

I’m glad we saw the art and the gardens before indulging in this spread. We may not have made it afterwards!

Photos courtesy Shawn Gadberry.
More to follow!

Mike Henderson is a wonderful artist and Blues musician and the husband of my artist friend and teacher, Susan Deming. They live and work in the San Francisco Bay area with their son, Isaac. The other day, I came across this video of Mike Henderson, which I love and wanted to share with you. To me, this is not just a story about an artist, but about a man who made his way against many odds and succeeded.

I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did.

For more about Mike Henderson and Spark, click here:

http://www.kqed.org/arts/programs/spark/profile.jsp?essid=17526

I’m nearing the end of my first draft of part three of the FAMILY PORTRAIT series. The working title is EMILIA. This has been the most difficult of the three books for me to write. The family has grown to four characters, Karla, Andreas and their son and daugher, Tonio and Laura. Trying to tell the stories of four people, giving each one a voice and a destiny without losing the overall structure and theme of the novel and without getting hopelessly lost has been a real challenge. One thing is for sure, there is going to be LOTS of editing. Anyway, just to give you a taste, here is a (preliminary) blurb:

Turmoil reigns in the O’Reilly-Bocelli household. With her two older children, Laura and Tonio, grown and getting ready to fly the coop, Karla finds out she is pregnant again. Instead of devoting her time and energy fully to her painting career, she is forced to raise another child. Andreas, her husband, is looking forward to being a father once more but soon realizes that the little bundle of joy, Emilia, instead of enhancing the relationship to his wife of over twenty years, intensifies the tension that has been building between them. While the parents fight each other, Laura and Tonio try to keep the peace. But more trouble waits in the wings: Andreas catches his son kissing another man in a more than friendly way, and Arturo, Karla’s Peruvian father, has a heart-attack. While Karla is in Peru taking care of Arturo, Andreas gets a little too cozy with a young woman by the name of Susanna. Only when he almost loses Emilia does he come to his senses and embarks on a journey to try to keep his family together.

For those of you who want to find out what has happened so far, part one, AN UNCOMMON FAMILY, is FREE on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk on MAY 23 and 24 and part two, LOVE OF A STONEMASON is available for $2.99 on Amazon.com and Amazon.uk.

BookSwag is a great new book site, where you can find a variety of inexpensive ebooks. Book One and Two of my Family Portrait series are featured on their bookshelves.

Today only, part one, An Uncommon Family, is free on Amazon and part two, Love of a Stonemason, is $ 2.99. So you get both books for a total of $ 2.99. Great deal!

An Uncommon Family – free

Love of a Stonemason – $2.99

Today – Friday, 1/27, is the last day my novels (ebook versions) about love, art, and family are available for free on Amazon. GRAB THEM while you can. Curl up on your favorite sofa and travel to Switzerland, Peru, Italy, New York, and Guadalajara, Mexico!

I enjoy an author that can use description to carry me away and place me in locations that I can enjoy within my mind’s eye. Christa Polkinhorn does just that in Love of a Stonemason. From Switzerland to Italy to Peru, I enjoyed vistas I will never see; felt breezes across lakes and through valleys I will never personally feel; was surrounded by local scents from exotic dishes and fields of flowers that I will never smell.

The title of her book first intrigued me as my grandfather was a stonemason and her Andreas brought back many memories of watching the way ‘Grampa’ could press his will upon a piece of granite.

Her Karla is an artist and I understood her challenges when approaching a blank canvas. Once upon a time I painted and Christa tweaked my mind with the scent of turpentine and the feel of paint on the brush as it made magic on the easel.

But more than a romance between creative minds, this story digs deep into the early trauma of each and follows their struggle in resolving their individual demons.

This would be the perfect book to tuck in your suitcase or add to your kindle for that “myself” time this summer. Pick your own special spot – perhaps in the shade of a maple tree beside a secluded cove at the lake. Ah, sounds of waves lapping gently on the shore, glass of wine and Love of a Stonemason.

Elizabeth Egerton Wilder
Author of The Spruce Gum Box

Just published my new novel An Uncommon Family, Book One of the Family Portrait series. Book Two, Love of a Stonemason was published in 2010. In other words, I wrote the second book before the first. I do things backward sometimes.

The novels, however, can be read in any order. The link between them is the main character, Karla, the young painter. Here are the blurbs to both novels:

An Uncommon Family:
A chance meeting between a middle-aged woman, a widower, and a semi-orphaned child in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, brings together three people who grapple with a past of loss and betrayal. Six-year-old Karla, whose mother died in a car crash, has a hard time accepting the loss. Anna, her aunt and guardian, struggles with her former husband’s deception and her shattered confidence in men, and Jonas, artist and teacher, mourns the death of his wife.

While trying to help Karla, a talented but troubled child, Anna and Jonas develop feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. The budding romance, however, hits a snag when Anna discovers a sinister secret in Jonas’s past. While the two adults have come to an impasse, young Karla takes matters into her own hands. Together with a friend, she develops a plan to bring the two uncooperative adults back together. The plan, however, creates havoc and as it begins to unravel, Karla is forced to learn some difficult lessons.

An Uncommon Family is a story about loss, lies, and betrayal but also about the healing power of love and forgiveness. It takes place in Switzerland, New York City, and Guadalajara, Mexico.

If you want to accompany Karla on her way to becoming a painter and grow as a person while struggling with turbulent love relationships, try Love of a Stonemason:

The young painter, Karla Bocelli, is all too familiar with loss. When she was five years old, her mother died in a car crash in the south of Switzerland. Her Peruvian father lives at the other end of the world, and a year ago, her aunt and guardian passed away. Now, at age twenty-four, Karla almost gets hit by a speeding car. As if this wasn’t fateful enough, Andreas, the driver, turns out to be a sculptor and carver of tombstones.

In spite of his profession, Andreas is anything but morbid. Quick-tempered and intense, he exudes a rough-and-tumble energy. After a tumultuous start of their relationship, Karla comes to see in Andreas the “rock in her life,” the perfect antidote to her fears of abandonment and bouts of depression. Andreas, however, wrestles with his own ghosts: an alcoholic father who abused him as a child and his own fits of anger. Together, the two artists must confront the demons that haunt them.

Love of a Stonemason is a story about the struggle of two artists with their past, their family, their creativity, and their love for each other. Told from the point of view of Karla, it depicts the world through her painter’s sensibility. It takes the reader on a journey full of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds from the south of Switzerland to Italy and the Peruvian Andes.

SUMMER SPECIAL:
For a limited time only, both novels are available at Amazon for the Kindle (click on the cover icons on the right), at Barnes&Noble.com for the Nook and at Smashwords for multiple devices for ONLY 99 cents each. Get your summer reading at an affordable price!

Lindsay Edmunds granted me an interview at her lovely blog. Check it out!

Check out Neal Hock’s great review!

More reviews on Amazon.

I would like to share a sensitive and insightful review of my novel Love of a Stonemason by Crystal Fulcher at her book blog My Reading Room.

Why I read this: The author sent me information about the book asking if I would like to review it, I was intrigued by the premise and agreed (and I am really glad I did).

How is the novel driven: Characters are the driving force in this book. It’s about Karla, Andreas, family and friends.

My Thoughts: The first thing that went through my mind when I finished this book on Friday night was simply “Wow”. I felt like I had been told a full story and while I wanted more of Karla and Andreas at the end, the story really was complete. I don’t know when was the last time I truly felt that when I finished a book. Ms. Polkinhorn did a magnificient job crafting this story and getting it on the page. The characters, scenery and happenings in the book really came alive for me and I felt like I was watching and feeling Karla and Andreas through the full book.

How to classify this book – I first thought it sounded like a romance, but after finishing it, I would say it is more general fiction. Romance is key, Karla and Andreas’ relationship is very key to the book. But most romance novels stop after dating and marriage usually, sometimes with glimpses of family life if there are several books in a series. The beauty of Ms. Polkinhorn’s novel is that it continues through the years after they marry and delves much deeper into the characters of Karla and Andreas as they tackle the new ups and downs of marriage, of their art and of family.

Love of a Stonemason never lags in plot. Whether you are looking into depression, the ups of a great art career, the separation (distance-wise) of Andreas and Karla, starting a family, all of this flowed together so well and made a great story. I was never bored and wondering when something good would happen. It was all interesting and attention getting. It’s as edge-of-your-seat as a non-thriller work can get. I was always wondering what would happen next, what aspect of life would be shown.

The realism is beautiful too. Love of a Stonemason truly shows the ups and downs of life, love and family. No family or person is perfect, there are always problems and always two sides to a story and that is what this book really looks into. I love that every aspect is shown and I really enjoyed the growth of the characters. Andreas and Karla are not superficial, you really get to know them through the whole book. I felt as though I knew them personally. The foreign setting and descriptions of landscapes and cities is also well-done. I also enjoyed learning about the art world, something that never really interested me before, but the author does a great job of making it interesting.

I laughed, I cried, I was frustrated with the characters (in a good way). I think I ran through most every emotion with this book. And what I love most is the feeling of the complete story and it’s a story that will stick with me for some time. I found myself thinking of Karla and Andreas and the other people in their lives through the weekend. Really letting the story settle over me and how I feel now is that this is a definite reread in my book and that is saying something since I don’t really reread books. My true hope is Ms. Polkinhorn will have another book on the way so I have another one of her books to enjoy. She brings realism to the story without it depressing you and leaving you down for days and I really like that. I do not have any complaints about this book and I think those of you who enjoy general fiction with a foreign-flair and romance will really enjoy this book.

My Rating: 5.0/5.0

About the Book:

The young painter, Karla Bocelli, is all too familiar with loss. When she was five years old, her mother died in a car crash in the south of Switzerland. Her Peruvian father lives at the other end of the world, and a year ago, her aunt and guardian passed away. Now, at age twenty-four, Karla almost gets hit by a speeding car. As if this wasn’t fateful enough, Andreas, the driver, turns out to be a sculptor and carver of tombstones. In spite of his profession, Andreas is anything but morbid. Quick-tempered and intense, he exudes a rough-and-tumble energy. After a tumultuous start of their relationship, Karla comes to see in Andreas the “rock in her life,” the perfect antidote to her fears of abandonment and bouts of depression. Andreas, however, wrestles with his own ghosts: an alcoholic father who abused him as a child and his own fits of anger. Together, the two artists must confront the demons that haunt them. Love of a Stonemason is a story about the struggle of two artists with their past, their family, their creativity, and their love for each other. Told from the point of view of Karla, it depicts the world through her painter’s sensibility. It takes the reader on a journey full of sights, smells, tastes, and sounds from the south of Switzerland to Italy and the Peruvian Andes.

About the Author:

Christa Polkinhorn, originally from Switzerland, lives and works as writer and translator in Santa Monica, California. She divides her time between the United States and Switzerland and has strong ties to both countries. Her poems have appeared in various poetry magazines. She is the author of Path of Fire, a collection of poems published by Finishing Line Press. Love of a Stonemason is her first novel.