Be Reckless: Vibrant NorthEast L.A.

Bookshelf

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)
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
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
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
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
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)
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
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
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
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.

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.

Today I met Danny in Silverlake at a great coffeehouse I had not been yet. Everything else on the street looked familiar and it was such a pleasant feeling. When I was living in Mount Washington I'd come down the hill to Los Feliz and Silverlake a lot, either to shop or hike in Griffith Park. And I loved it.

Don't get me wrong. I am still a beach girl and a piece of my heart will be forever buried in Topanga Canyon. But in this precise time and space, I feel like in Los Angeles you gotta move East if you want to find the best of town. It is just more vibrant there. It is still happening and at the same time consolidated. It's not as snobbish as West Hollywood and not as crowded as Venice and the Westside, generally speaking. So I just feel perfectly home there as never before.

I was even happy to go grocery shopping at my old Trader's Joe. Me! The woman who could not take shopping twice in the same market or she would drop bored on the spot. Am I just getting older? Is that what it means to finally prefer the reassurance of known places to a leap of faith into the unknown?

I don't know and I don't care. Let's just say that leaping into the NorthEast part of town made my day.

BTW, Danny, your green shirt was a perfect match of the green & brown twin patio rugs we got at the Green Design place. You should take a picture of yourself laying on it in the bedroom with the green avocado wall!

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Be Reckless

Dreaming is the ability not only to point your finger to the moon, but to hitchhike all the way up there.

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