Red Leather Diary in J. Crew
By lilykoppel | March 4, 2010
For their Spring 2010 collection, J.Crew asked me to be a style “muse” … What I’ve learned: modeling is easier than writing, but I think I’ll stick it out. That said, it was fun playing dress up in outfits created by J.Crew creative director Jenna Lyons, read the full article on InStyle.com. View what I wore (and wrote) on jcrew.com
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Red Leather Diary Tea and Edible Pages
By lilykoppel | January 25, 2010
Dear Florence and Lily,
The tea party, with the Red Leather Diary as the theme, was a great success. I am so thrilled that the girls loved the book and that we had a great time discussing it.
For the centerpiece, I just stacked books, some of which were mentioned as reading material in the book. It’s interesting, I have old copies of Painted Veils, Frankenstein and Salome. On the top of the stack I made a facsimile of the Red Leather Diary out of anise cookies and edible paper. (The girls think I should send you a cookie, which I would be glad to do, but not sure you’d want one, although they were quite tasty!!).
…I thought I would send you some photos. It is my pleasure to let my friends and acquaintances who read, know about this wonderful book…
Take care and stay well,
Claudia
Topics: Book Clubs, Letters, The Journey | No Comments »
Red Leather Diary Book Tour, Round Two
By lilykoppel | October 20, 2009
Vero Beach, FL - 10/20/2009 - Northern Trust/Indian River Literary Society luncheon - Orchid Island Beach Club
Stuart, FL - 10/21/2009 - Northern Trust/Indian River Literary Society luncheon - Northern Trust Office
Albuquerque, NM - 10/22/2009 - noon click here for reservations and info
Philadelphia, PA - 10/24/2009 -
Austin, TX - 11/2/2009 - 7 pm click here for reservations and info
Rochester, NY - 11/5/2009 - 7:30 pm click here for reservations and info
*With Florence Howitt* Davie, FL - 11/8/2009 - 10 am - click here for reservations and info
St. Paul, MN - 11/17/2009 - noon & 7 pm (two presentations) click here for reservations and info
Pasedena, CA - 11/19/2009 - Fed. of Greater San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys (Pasadena, CA) - luncheon - 2 pm - click here for reservations and info
Rockland County, NY - 3/10/2010 - evening - click here for reservations and info
*Region Wide Read* Nassau Region, NY - 5/11/2010 - 12:30 PM - for reservations and info contact Miriam Abrahams, 516-766-2725, mabraha1@optonline.net
Topics: Book Clubs, Events, The Journey | 2 Comments »
Highlights & The Red Leather Diary in Australia and New Zealand
By lilykoppel | October 20, 2009
The year since the hardcover’s release has been exciting, and I wanted to share a few highlights. THE RED LEATHER DIARY was selected as the Barnard Alumna Book Club pick, nominated by a faculty committee and read by the entire incoming class of 2012; past authors include Jeanette Walls (The Glass Castle) and Anna Quindlen (Blessings). The Book was a Book Sense Bestseller and an Ingram Reading Group Selection for book clubs. Several major metropolitan communities selected THE RED LEATHER DIARY as their annual community-wide read. In addition, scores of local book clubs read and are reading the book. The book continues to receive strong reviews in dozens of newspapers, magazines, websites, and blogs around the world – including in the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Serbia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia!
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Book Babes in Red
By lilykoppel | October 20, 2009
The Red Leather Diary was selected as an October Top Pick by Book End Babes for their national book club. As Book Babe founder Malena Lott, formerly of Athena’s Bookshelf, described “We are a sorority of lit sisters so we have real-life chapters all over the country - just started in September - so our aim is, of course, to take over the world. We really do want to start a reading revolution! :-)”
As a featured author & book, I will be participating in the Book End Babes tweet chat on Thursday, Oct. 29th at 7 pm. Join in! Follow me on Twitter
Topics: Book Clubs, Events, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
The Holy Grail of the Unconscious Bound in Red Leather
By lilykoppel | September 22, 2009
“This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland.” Read the New York Times Magazine article on Carl Jung’s Red Book.
By the way, Florence was in psychoanalysis in the 1950s and ’60s, on a couch on the Upper West Side, pre-Woody Allen films. Now 94, her neighbor in Connecticut is a psychoanalyst whose home is filled with primitive statues and art — he resembles an older Picasso.
Topics: The Journey, Uncategorized | No Comments »
A Haiku for Florence’s 94th Birthday
By lilykoppel | August 9, 2009
This just in from a reader, Deborah Colette Murphy, for Florence’s 94th celebrated on August 11 (she received the diary for her 14th birthday in 1929): The Red Leather Diary is such a beautiful story of a talented, creative young woman. I have written diaries throughout my life and I was so touched by Florence Wolfson’s story. I grew up in New York City in the 60’s and so much resonated with me. I realized it is almost the 80th anniversary of the diary’s birth and Florence must be turning 94! What an inspiration! Happy Birthday, Florence! Here’s a haiku for you and Lily…
The journey began
Sharing moments of your life
Such a treasured gift!
Topics: Journaling/Blogging, Letters, The Journey, Uncategorized | No Comments »
Elizabeth writes to Paula (below, July 20)
By lilykoppel | August 2, 2009
Dear Paula,
Go ahead…Get a beautiful blank book and the most gorgeous pen you can find and start that diary!!!!! I’m 39 and I only began when I was 22. It’s NEVER too late; each day is overflowing with small details that are worth putting down.
~Elizabeth
Topics: Gifts, Journaling/Blogging, The Journey | No Comments »
Red Leather Diary Tea Party @ Edith Wharton’s
By lilykoppel | August 1, 2009
I’m heading to Edith Wharton’s estate (another diarist), The Mount, to speak about The Red Leather Diary on Monday, August 3, 2009 at 4:00 pm. Check out the link here and info below, come and bring or tell friends!
The lecture takes place in The Mount’s (air-conditioned) historic stable and will be followed by a book-signing and tea. The Mount is located at 2 Plunkett Street (just off route 7) in Lenox, Mass. Tickets are $18 in advance (by noon), $20 at the door. Students with valid ID receive a $5 discount. To purchase tickets, or for more information, please call The Mount at 413-551-5111 or visit www.edithwharton.org
Topics: Book Clubs, Events, Gifts | No Comments »
If you are reading this, you are part of a salon
By lilykoppel | July 28, 2009
A blog post that gets to the heart of what I set out to convey in my description of Florence’s salon. Why not call your next book club meeting a salon?
…
Melissa writes on Bettyboochronicles.blogspot.com: This week I’ve been reading The Red Leather Diary, by Lily Koppel. It’s not Lily’s diary, however; it is that of Florence Wolfson, a teenager living in New York during the early 1930s. If you haven’t read it, it is a fascinating glimpse of that time period. Lily Koppel combines extensive interviews and Florence’s diary entries to create an exquisite book. There’s been a lot of positive buzz about this among book bloggers, to whom I am grateful - I might have missed out on this had it not been for all your reviews. Hopefully I will finish this today (only 70 pages left) as I have a little more time than usual to read.
I’m at the part of the diary (page 237-238) where Florence, a 19 year old graduate student at Columbia University, starts a literary salon. Quoting from The Red Leather Diary:
“As Florence bent to light the fire in the fireplace, she unpinned her long hair and let it cascade seductively onto her shoulders as her guests pondered Aristotle’s Art of Poetry and the life of Saint Thomas Aquinas. These were their heroes. Her first year at Columbia, Florence began a salon in the Wolfsons’ living room, assembling an avant-garde group hungry for ideas and as passionate about words as she was. Ideas were their aphrodisiacs, the intellectual lifeblood of their being. Each member’s day-to-day existence was driven by discussions of Socrates and Plato, relating lofty truths to daily acts like riding the subway. The circle was their real life. They were bohemians, wandering along Riverside Park on a Sunday afternoon, stopping for a thirty-five cent Chinese banquet or rounds of beers. ‘Eccentric’ or ‘unusual personality’ described just about everyone in the circle.
“The salon members were flamboyant, shrewd, artistic exiles from immigrant families. The American dream, for their parents, had been to get rich at whatever cost, no matter what labor was involved. Their parents were craftsmen, tradesmen, and merchants. Their life’s work was work. Florence and her friends wanted to be recognized for their artistic genius. They read The New Yorker, Harper’s, and The Atlantic. They despised the bourgeois ethics perpetrated by magazines like Collier’s and the Saturday Evening Post. They read aloud from Hound & Horn, a literary quarterly founded by Harvard undergrads Lincoln Kirstien and Varian Fry in 1927, devoted to writers they idolized, T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Gertrude Stein.
“Florence served white wine on a silver tray at the group’s midnight sessions. Her friends stayed until early morning, talking philosophy, getting drunk, having little orgies in Florence’s bedroom, seeking physical as well as intellectual pleasure, all in pursuit of ‘the Socratic quest.’ ‘Know thyself - gnothi seauton,’ reminded their hostess. They meditated on Socrates’s famous line, ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.”
How I would have loved to have been part of Florence Wolfson’s literary salons, I thought, as I read that passage. Can you imagine what that must have been like? Discussing literature and exchanging ideas, escaping from one’s everyday life for the time it takes to write a blog post and being something more than what we do as a profession or a career or however we pay the bills, striving for something more than materialism from getting rich at any cost?
And then it struck me.
I am part of such a salon, just in a different form than what was in the 1930s. If you think about it, it’s really not all that different than what we are doing here, online, on our blogs and in forums…view full post here
Topics: Book Clubs, Journaling/Blogging, Reviews, The Journey | 1 Comment »