en-US Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:42:23 -0800 60 144 41 http://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/gr_logo_144.jpg /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/228976-an-aching-bum-but-it-s-worth-it Fri, 27 Nov 2009 23:42:23 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/228976-an-aching-bum-but-it-s-worth-it I spent this evening at Waterstone's in Weston-super-Mare, signing books as part of the launch of late night shopping at the Sovereign Centre.

I like book signings. They're tiring and they make my bum, jaw, teeth and ankles ache, but I get to meet the people who are reading my books... I get feedback. At first it was a tad frightening. After all, I could have been descended upon by a mob bearing torches and pitchforks... followed by a contingent carrying rope and pointing out suitable trees a...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 27 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/218875-my-first-bookshop-love-affair Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:25:04 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/218875-my-first-bookshop-love-affair I first came across Arthur Probsthain, Oriental & African bookseller, in 1986. I was in London to visit the British Museum for the first time, and I was sixteen years old. It was a rainy day - somehow London always seems more Londony when it rains - and my heart gave a little flutter when I first spotted the bookshop's hanging sign. I was obsessed with Japanese prints, but no local bookstores stocked books on the subject, and it was back before the Internet took hold of us and provided the op...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 19 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/217960-i-am-experiencing-sudden-raptures Fri, 06 Nov 2009 21:50:01 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/217960-i-am-experiencing-sudden-raptures I was quite taken aback by myself today. Ever since my books first came out, I've been so busy working on other projects that I haven't really had much time to sit back and take in what's been going on around me. The books have had great reviews, and I've been very happy about that, in the few seconds before falling asleep when I had a quiet moment to think about something other than my next paragraph. The signings have gone incredibly well, and for the duration of the car ride home I've been...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 06 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/209791-doom-and-gloom-go-zoom-to-the-moon Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:18:25 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/209791-doom-and-gloom-go-zoom-to-the-moon Anyone who's read any of my previous blog posts knows that I am not a floaty, fluffy, 'it's all sunshine and moonbeams' kinda gal when it comes to this writing malarkey... I'm a realist. I'm all for realism. What I'm not a great fan of is scaremongering codswallop. So, the publishing industry's going through changes... has that never happened before? Book sales are down and, apparently, the end of the physical book is in sight... well, we're in the middle of an economic recession... money spe...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 04 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/200501-great-expectations Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:38:13 -0700 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/200501-great-expectations "Are your books doing as well as you hoped they would?" I have been asked this question so many times, and I haven't once been able to answer it. I have no answer. In order for my books to do as well as I hoped, I'd have had to hope in the first place. I was told by a very dear friend, when I was sixteen years old, that there's no money to be made in writing about art. He'd been doing it for years, and was very well respected in the field... he knew what he was talking about. I listened to hi...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on October, 20 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/197432-i-still-think-of-cedric Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:04:26 -0700 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/197432-i-still-think-of-cedric On the subject of food again, I don't often talk about the fact that I'm a vegetarian. When the subject does come up, I'm usually asked how I came to be a veggie, and my answer is always the same... 'I once murdered a chicken.'

The roots of my vegetarianism lie in the year 1972, in a village in southern Italy. I am half Italian (Calabrese to be exact), and my grandmother had a farm (like Old MacDonald). On that farm she had some goats... and chickens. She also had a granddaughter who, at the a...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on October, 18 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/194549-food-doesn-t-kill-me-anymore Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:32:36 -0700 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/194549-food-doesn-t-kill-me-anymore The illness that resulted in my brush with death in 2007, being somewhat mysterious (as I couldn't possibly fall prey to a boring and predictable one), resulted in me developing various unusual food allergies, cutting down the number of foods I was able to eat without breaking out or choking to death to about three. It's amazing just how boring, not to mention frustrating, mealtimes can become when you are faced with the same few meals day after day after day. I even had to avoid eating choco...

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on October, 15 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/166350-wearing-in-my-new-shoes Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:44:21 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/166350-wearing-in-my-new-shoes Yesterday, following the shoe incident, we headed off towards Boulevard Saint-Germain, stopping off at Notre Dame along the way, partly because we always pop in there (with me being a bit of an architecture nut) and partly because it was so hot that we feared we might be roasted alive where we stood if we stayed outdoors. My photographs can't convey the scale of the cathedral's interior... it's awe inspiring, even with the large groups of tourists and countless flashes going off left, right and

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 11 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/166109-and-then-my-shoe-blew-up Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:51:11 -0800 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/166109-and-then-my-shoe-blew-up We were just about to hop on the metro to head off to Notre Dame when all of a sudden my shoe exploded. Well, perhaps it didn't explode exactly, but it most certainly self-destructed. I have never seen a shoe fall apart in such a dramatic fashion... and it certainly isn't something I'd have expected from a Hush Puppy. The lower sole broke into two pieces, the upper sole came away from it, and the central padding fell out, right there on the platform. So, there I was, with my footwear thinking it

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on November, 18 ]]> /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/165003-a-little-about-lille Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:34:21 -0700 /author/show/1997328.Gina_Collia_Suzuki/blog/165003-a-little-about-lille
Although we've been coming to Lille for a decade, we've never actually been during the summer, usually choosing to visit in December when the Christmas market is here, along with the Ferris wheel, decorations, and the festive music ringing out across the Grande Place. Whatever the season, Lille is always an excellent place to do a spot of shopping. Louis Vuitton, Hermès, Kenzo, and a multitude of other famous names can all be found in Lille.


There are stores selling just about everything, cateri

posted by Gina Collia-Suzuki on October, 05 ]]>