Archive for 2010

Family Ties

Posted on August 9, 2010

I don’t usually talk about my books here, and use it more as a forum for sharing with you what I think or how I feel, or to tell you what I’m doing, or something exciting I’ve seen. But I do write the books after all, and I guess that’s worth talking about too. » read more »

Filed Under Books, Writing | 9 Comments

Honesty, Integrity, and Honor

Posted on August 2, 2010

Heavy subjects, huh? And I was trying to figure out how to express what I am thinking about those issues, without sounding unduly cranky. But I have been thinking about those subjects for several days.

As I mentioned to you recently, I discovered about a year and a half ago that I had been embezzled, which was a shocking and deeply upsetting experience for me. The person » read more »

Being In Your 20’s

Posted on July 26, 2010

Unfortunately, I think everyone is obsessed with age today (and I’m not immune to it either. No one is). I am constantly astounded when I hear that some young girls in their 20’s are already using Botox, convinced that wrinkles are starting to appear. The aging process doesn’t appeal to any of us, but seems to be striking terror these days in the hearts of young women, even in their early 20’s. We are a society and culture obsessed by youth. Women start having plastic surgery in their 30’s and 40’s, » read more »

Filed Under Age, Family | 10 Comments

Vintage Furniture

Posted on July 19, 2010

Vintage has come to mean a lot of things these days. ‘Antique’ used to cover a multitude of eras, and was applied sometimes incorrectly to anything more than l0 or 20 years old. Nowadays, people are a little more precise, and vintage seems to refer to something old, but not old enough to be antique. And it refers to clothes and furniture. And vintage has now become considered a noble status, highly desirable, and covers everything from what is found at a yard sale—-or the highly prized ‘mid century modern’ (remember when that was called Danish Modern?? Although you may not be old enough to remember that). But all the furniture we considered ordinary (and the clothes) in the 60’s and 70’s, » read more »

Paris Dinner Parties

Posted on July 12, 2010

My friends and I often complain in San Francisco, that no one entertains, no one gives dinner parties, no one seems to invite anyone over. I used to entertain a lot when I was married, and give lots of dinner parties, and I rarely do anymore either, but when I do (usually friendly evenings of Mexican food, or the poker parties I love, with pizza, roast chicken, » read more »

Filed Under Paris | 11 Comments

Art Basel

Posted on July 5, 2010

As you may remember I had a contemporary art gallery in San Francisco for 4 years, which (much to my chagrin) I closed a few years ago. I absolutely LOVED it, being involved with contemporary art, and bringing artists and buyers/collectors together was one of my great joys. I am always particularly excited by unknown and emerging artists, and discovering their work. And even now, » read more »

Marriage

Posted on June 29, 2010

Now there’s a subject you could fill volumes with.  And many have.  I’ve certainly written my share of ‘happily ever afters’ in my books.  And over the course of history, literary and otherwise, is the expected happy ending:  the handsome prince marries the princess, and they live happily ever after.  Sadly, that seems to happen mostly in fairy tales and fiction, and less and less often in real life, » read more »

Filed Under Relationships | 14 Comments

Legacy

Posted on June 23, 2010

Legacy

In Stores Now

This compelling, centuries-spanning novel brilliantly interweaves the lives of two women—a writer working in the heart of modern academia and a daring young Sioux Indian on an incredible journey in the eighteenth century. The result is an unforgettable story of courage in the face of the unknown.

At the age of thirty-eight, Brigitte Nicholson has a job she likes, a man she loves, and a book on the women’s suffrage movement that she will finish—someday. Someday is Brigitte’s watchword. Someday she and Ted, a rising star in the field of archaeology, will clarify their relationship. Someday she will have children. Someday she will stop playing it so safe. Then, on a snowy day in Boston, Brigitte’s life is jolted. Suddenly everything she counted on has changed and she finds herself questioning every choice she has made along the way.

As she struggles to regain her balance and plot a new course, Brigitte agrees to help her mother on a family genealogy project. In Salt Lake City at the Family History Library, she makes a stunning discovery—reaching back to the French aristocracy. How did Brigitte’s mysterious ancestor Wachiwi, a Dakota Sioux, travel from the Great Plains to the French court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette—and into the arms of a French marquis? How did she come to marry into Brigitte’s family? What is the truth behind the tantalizing clues in the fragmented, centuries-old records?

Following the threads of Wachiwi’s life, Brigitte travels to South Dakota, then on to Paris, irresistibly drawn to this brave young woman who lived so long ago. And as she comes closer to solving the puzzle of Wachiwi’s journey, her previously safe, quiet life becomes an adventure of its own. A chance meeting with a writer of historical fiction, a new opportunity, and a difficult choice put Brigitte at last in the forefront of her own story. With a complex and powerful family legacy coming to life around her, someday is no longer in the future. Instead, in Danielle Steel’s mesmerizing new novel, someday is now.

San Francisco Art Fair

Posted on June 21, 2010

I went to a wonderful art fair in San Francisco recently. I am always a big fan of art fairs, as you know! There used to be a terrific one in San Francisco, but it faded away several years ago, and I think there has been a real hunger for one to replace it. So we got our wish, and after about seven or eight years of no art fair there was a really interesting on in May. » read more »

Filed Under Current Events | 1 Comment

Graduation

Posted on June 14, 2010

After spending two thirds of my life, and all of my adult life with kids, I have become well aware that there is ‘cool’ and ‘not cool’, cool events, cool people, cool ways of handling situations. There is also rad, ‘cheesy’ (very un-cool), hot (when cool is taken to extremes it becomes ‘hot’, and more recently ‘sick’.) Sick is fantastically cool. It took me a while to get that one, the first time one of my kids’ friends said I looked sick, I was seriously worried and wondered if I’d been working too hard or was ill and didn’t know it—until I got the translation. Whew! Sick! » read more »