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Bookshelf

  • Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice

    Thomas Pynchon: Inherent Vice
    Halfway through the book, and I am once more amazed at the geniality of Pynchon, this time challenging the hard boiled stereotypes. Reading that is a memory exercise for the Sixty lingo and definitely brain storming about the usual big questions. I just wonder how the writer who never write real endings will manage to avoid ending a thriller!

  • Robert Crais: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Joe Pike Novels)

    Robert Crais: The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel (Joe Pike Novels)
    I fell in love with Robert Crais this winter, reading or re-reading everything that he published and I could get my hands on. He lullaby me into sleep with his tales of a dangerous and mysterious canyonland and that's L.A. at its best. The Watchman is no exception. Superb storytelling and thoroughly cut characters. Oh, and of course I'm in love with Joe Pike and Elvis Cole both. The evil and good twins, the most human detectives in hard boiled history.

  • Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia

    Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
    Love this too. At first I was almost irritated at the mastered self-deprecating style. But after 40 pages Gilbert's wit won me over. 108 short stories, the same number of beads connected in a mala to help you pray, divided in three sections and three countries. Italy, India and Indonesia. A fantastic journey of self-discovery that brings to a great life change.

  • Daniele Bolelli: On the Warrior's Path, Second Edition

    Daniele Bolelli: On the Warrior's Path, Second Edition
    I loved the first edition and I was even more impressed with the second. I am not saying this just because I am the mother of the author. I am a fan of the warrior that I've seen to walk his talk and remain on his very own path every day of his life. Martial arts were my passion long before they became my son's but I never forced him to embrace them. He did by his own choice and went much farther than I've ever been. Martial arts gave Daniele balance and taught him to be strong but graceful and generous in life. Daniele shares all he learned in this book with his typical humorous, knockout style.

  • Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog

    Muriel Barbery: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
    Delightful. Perfect summer reading. Unlikely charachters and humorous style. The world seen through a concierge peep-hole. With a touch of Kant and Marx, without self-pity. Fun!

  • Jonathan Rosen: The Life of the Skies

    Jonathan Rosen: The Life of the Skies
    So much more than a book about birds. Although the author's premise that birds are the wildest creatures most of us will ever be able to see in our lifetime, is sadly true. Nevertheless, birds carry a message of challenge to one's limitations. I love that. And the approach to nature's preservation through technology adds to the debate.

  • Cormac McCarthy: The Road (Oprah's Book Club)

    Cormac McCarthy: The Road (Oprah's Book Club)
    Obviously I'm not faster than Oprah. And I never liked to read books everybody is talking about when thy're news. So accept my delayed recommendation. Apocalyptique scenarios are not my favorite but McCarthy's stile is a killer.

  • A. M. Homes: This Book Will Save Your Life

    A. M. Homes: This Book Will Save Your Life
    Amusing. Entertaining. Totally unlikely if the story did not take place in L.A. Since that is the case, have fun with it. Wit and humor of the storyteller makes this book perfect for your nightstand.

  • Gloria Mattioni: Reckless

    Gloria Mattioni: Reckless
    Since I'm the author, I can't say anything about it. But I'd like you to do that. You can order it clicking on the Amazon link.

  • Tom Robbins: Wild Ducks Flying Backward

    Tom Robbins: Wild Ducks Flying Backward
    The unknown Tom Robbins before Tom Robbins. Short writings, art and concerts reviews, and everything he wrote before and on the side of his career as a best seller novelist.

Reckless Music

Movie Top List

Blogs I read

My All-Star Team

  • In Reckless, I tell the stories of nine kick-ass women. I chose these nine among the many others I met because they touched my heart more than anybody else, for one reason or the other. Here is how they are described on the back cover by my reckless editor, Brooke Warner, whose enthusiasm for my project shaped it into a book published by Seal Press in October 2005:

    Reckless recounts the stories of nine women who made unconventional choices that sent their lives down determinably unique paths.

    Author Gloria Mattioni chose nine women, all of whom she spent time with at different periods over the course of more than a decade.

    The women include: Julia Butterfly Hill, who lived alone for 738 days atop an ancient 200-foot-tall redwood tree she named Luna;

    Wilma Mankiller was chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma for more than ten years;

    Gevin Fax left a promising career in Ohio, jumped on her Harley Davidson, and cruised to California, where she became the ambassador of women bikers;

    Annie Duke, the queen of professional poker, beat out her older brother and eight other poker legends to win $2 million and the World Series of Poker Tournament of Champions in November 2004;

    Libby Riddles was the first woman to win the legendary Iditarod, the grueling, thousand-mile dog sled race across Alaska, after a century of male victories;

    Angelika Castaneda, along with her twin sister Barbara Warren, age 61, are Ironman, X-Treme Games, and Triathlon multi-champions who continue to compete.

    Lisa Distefano, former Playboy model and captain of a “pirate” vessel, challenges those who threaten the lives of the whales, dolphins, and seals she’s vowed to protect;

    Polly Matzinger, Ph.D pursued careers as a waitress and a dog trainer before returning to school in her late thirties to become a world-renown biologist with her theory about the immune system that could revolutionize the way we treat disease.

    Mattioni’s own story is detailed in the introduction, where she describes the reasons she left everything in the pursuit of interesting, daring women who continue to be one of the sources of motivation behind her own very unconventional life.

    Stay tuned for more news about these nine kick ass women’s lives.

Start Here

Reckless Los Angeles

  • Samheather
    The first of many Reckless parties celebrating the book.

« February 2009 | Main | April 2009 »

Wild Goose

My friend Alexa, who lived in Washington State somewhere north of Seattle, sent me this great picture.
And I remembered what grandma Hazel used to say when she spotted a flock of wild goose flying above her place in the Yankton reservation, South Dakota.

"Good things are coming, my dear. You keep praying, keep the faith and your wish will come true."

Some of my wishes did come true thanks to the wild goose omen and Grandma Hazel's advice. Now it's your turn to look at them and concentrate on your own special heart desire.

Good luck and good springtime renewal!DSC_0086_2(2)

March 10, 2009 at 12:37 PM | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Canyon Fever

Time is running. The day of my arrival in L.A. is getting close, thanks goodness, and I am getting excited despite tiresome. High time to go house-hunting again and my canyon fever is getting to its highest peak.

Yes, I know. Canyon sagebrush go on fire in October and the hillside get washed down by mudslides in November. But I can still breath the smell of wild flowers blooming in this season and I get along with coyotes and raccoons. They make great neighbors.

And if my reasons were not enough, let's consider it as a "wise career move", ha ha. I want to write a great L.A. thriller in the footsteps of my beloved hard boiled masters. Where ELSE could I write but a L.A. canyon?


March 16, 2009 at 10:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Crazy L.A.

My house hunt in these days has been enlightening. Basically every shack, dump or piece of dirt in L.A. County still costs almost half a million dollars. And let's not even talk about decent size houses that are not tear-downs surrounded by tons of trash that nobody cared to pick up since the Jurassic. 


How come? Wasn't the real estate bubble finally burst? Evidently not in my beloved city of angels. Sure, prices went slightly down but, that's it. And I can't help loving Los Angeles just the same.

Am I crazy or what?

March 24, 2009 at 03:52 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

30 Lbs Weight Restriction

Don't worry. This is not my ideal weight goal and no, I have not become anorexic.

I am just looking for a place to rent in the L.A. area for next June and July, so I will have more time to look for a suitable house to buy. But I want to move back here with my dog by then, and Moki can hardly be masked as a fat Chihuahua! He definitely weights more than  30 lbs, the weight limit for dogs acceptance policy in most places,even has some German sheperd genes in him, and that is on the breed restriction list in some. Oh my!

Meanwhile, un-suspicious Moki is on vacation in Milan at Franco's house. I'm sure he's having a great time but I need to assure a permanent Califormia home for his golden years.

March 30, 2009 at 10:13 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)