The Baltimore Bibliophile

I'm the Baltimore Bibiliophile. Welcome to my blog. I'll be reviewing books, bookstores, and readings in and about Baltimore, listing book-related events and news, and offering my personal take on literature of all stripes in Charm City. Please feel free to contribute to the discussion.

I've just moved to Baltimore with my husband and two young children from the Lower East Side of New York, a city I had wanted to live in since I was a child and loved living in as an adult. We had to leave for my husband to take a great job. Sadly, we were ready to go. Manhattan is no longer the edgy, creative place I had fallen in love with as a kid growing up in San Francisco reading avidly about New York, with its intriguing eccentricities and little-known patches memorialized in countless books and movies--the All-of-a-Kind Family series, Harriet the Spy, The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L'Engle, The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Woody Allen's Manhattan. Now it's too sleek for my taste. These days Baltimore is more creative and edgy than New York.

In an odd twist, I have a long family history here. My great-grandmother was born in Baltimore in 1868, and my grandmother spent her teenage years with an uncle's family a few blocks from where I now live. My parents, who grew up in Park Heights, moved to San Francisco before I was born. I've visited Baltimore every year of my life, so I have a lot of affection for the place and great hopes for its future. I hope that as the arts scene here becomes even stronger, Baltimore will become a pleasanter and safer city without losing its creativity.

I've moved here through necessity, but perhaps true love could be nurtured through literature.

Come with me and see.