Julia Flynn Siler's Blog

• Book Group Expo: Shakespeare … or Sex?

  November 5, 2008

  • There are conventions for everyone: dog lovers, tattoo artists, people who trade sports memorabilia, barristas, and hairdressers. They all have their annual gatherings to swap tales, make friends, and do business. So why shouldn’t book groups have theirs? For the third year, an estimated 1,700 people gathered over a weekend in October for Book Group Expo at the San Jose Convention Center in ...
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• Mo' Bob Mon ...

  October 20, 2008

  • Anyone driving east from San Francisco on Highway 80, the 10-lane transcontinental highway to Nevada and points east, can’t miss the name Mondavi. In California’s Central Valley, where the Mondavi family first made its name in the grape wholesaling business in the 1920s and then became America’s foremost wine dynasty, Robert and Margrit Mondavi have passed into legend – so much so that ...
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• Copia chairman asks: "Can it survive?"

  July 24, 2008

  • Despite my intention to take a summer sabbatical, an investigative story that appeared on the front page of last Sunday’s Sacramento Bee brought me back to my keyboard. The story raises some new questions about Robert Mondavi’s philanthropic legacy, a subject I explored in The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty. Sparse crowds at Copia have contributed to its ...
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