WHAT'S ON YOUR SUMMER READING LIST?

June 6, 2016

Can it really be June already?  Time to think about that perennial pleasure, the summer reading list!
 
Growing up, my summers were spent on an island without cars, television or phones. It was a magical place, offering up endless days of sand and sea, the feel of the warm boardwalk under bare feet and the rhythmic songs of crickets at night. In the years that followed, that thin strip of sand has never lost its purchase on my heart.
 
My island was made all the more wonderful by a small library.  A shady room filled primarily with cast-off books deemed unworthy of being carried back to the mainland.  Orphans, most of them a little worse for the wear, slightly warped by seawater or with fine grains of sand trapped between their pages. 
 
But to me they were perfect. Because of them my summers were spent not only at the beach, but among pirates on the high seas, on windswept English moors, on the backs of willful horses, and even among the stars that shone so brightly overhead.
 
While my summer no longer consists of endless days by the sea, it still consists of books. I love the anticipation and promise of my summer reading list.  

What’s on YOUR summer reading list?

BOOK LAUNCH, WELLESLEY BOOKS

May 3, 2016

Thank you to the staff at Wellesley Books and to everyone who came out to celebrate the launch of The Blue Bath!

INSPIRATION BEHIND THE BLUE BATH

April 5, 2016

As I write this, advance copies of The Blue Bath are landing on the desks of reviewers, booksellers and librarians, a milestone that makes me think about how this journey began.

One of the questions I am asked most is what was the inspiration for The Blue Bath.  It all started with a face glimpsed through a window. A small moment of connection in a crowded city.  I was living in London at the time, rushing to or from somewhere. As I passed by an art gallery, I caught sight of her behind the glass, mingled with the reflection of the buildings across the street.  For an instant we locked eyes as the city rushed past us. And then I did what most people in that situation would have done.  I kept walking—hurrying on to wherever it was that I needed to be.
 
But she wasn’t so quick to let me go. There was something in her face that I couldn’t shake. I started to think about who she was and about what it must feel like to be the subject of a portrait, to be examined so closely. And then I started to think about the artist and about the act of looking at someone that deliberately.  It seemed so intimate. I started to think about all of this and then I started to write about it. 

To me The Blue Bath is a reminder to pay attention to the small moments of beauty in my daily life.  Not only for what they are, but for all that they might become.

DUTCH COVER (BADEN IN BLAUW)

March 20, 2016

Here is the cover of the Dutch edition -- out now!  Mooi (as they say in Amsterdam)!

http://www.karakteruitgevers.nl/boeken/Mary__Waters-Sayer_Baden_in_Blauw.html