Confessions of a Librarian: A Memoir of Loves
Barbara Foster, 2015
Riverdale Avenue Books
248 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781626011519
Summary
Ever wonder what a university librarian--a highly praised and widely translated author--does at night after spending the day at the reference desk answering questions?
Barbara Foster’s latest endeavor is a no-holds barred memoir that describes her erotic pilgrimage to the “wilder shores of love,” including Turkey, India, Israel and Argentina, as well as frolics with the Mob in her home town, swinging Manhattan. A nice girl from Philadelphia turned female Casanova, Barbara has recorded her encounters in Confessions of a Librarian: A Memoir of loves. Though her Confessions expose the hot and dirty, they are always literate. Unlike the sparsely written and made-up genre of “mommy porn,” Confessions descends from the classics of erotic love: Casanova’s Story of My Life, Anais Nin’s diaries, and Catherine M’s Sexual Life, with a nod to Erica Jong and Toni Bentley. And what happens to Barbara really happened. The 250 page manuscript is complete, carefully edited, and legally vetted.
Confessions is structured around a group of memorable women friends (and sometime rivals) who meet bi-weekly in New York, where Barbara recalls her erotic pilgrimage, both geographically and spiritually. Barbara fits in although she is a mature, married, career academic with expertise in biographical writing. The Club is an actual group that Barbara attended, and the women’s personalities clash and evolve. The names and descriptions of participants have been changed, and where advisable places and dates altered.
Barbara’s erotic stories invite her readers to participate vicariously in global adventures that have become too dangerous for most. Terrorism, kidnapping, sexually transmitted diseases may have curtailed the opportunity for erotic travel, but not the desire. Barbara’s writing style is both romantic and down-to-bed. Her personal conflicting duality creates a tension that makes her own character come alive. The men portrayed are a compelling lot: rich or poor, shady or respectable, romantic and surprising in the boudoir. The memoir, like its author, is both bawdy and bookish. Confessions will forever change the image of the librarian!
Author Bio
• Birth—June 27, 1948
• Where—Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
• Education—B.A., Temple University; M.A., Columbia University
• Currently—lives in New York, New York
Barbara Foster is an Associate Professor and research librarian at City Univerity of New York. She is co-author of three highly acclaimed books, including the biographies Forbidden Journey (Harper/Collins) and The Secret Lives of Alexandra David-Neel (third printing Overlook, 2007). The New York Times reviewed her biography of David-Neel favorably on three occasions: the “Bear in Mind” column called it “a wonderful biography,” and “New and Noteworthy” stated: “Hers was a great human life very well written up.” The New York Review of Books rated the biography "one of the best books of all-time." Her biography of Adah Isaacs Menken, America’s first superstar, A Dangerous Woman, was published in 2011 by Globe Pequot Press. She was profiled in the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung and did a reading at New York University’s Deutsches Haus.
Barbara is a world traveler in the tradition of the heroic women she writes about. She has acted as a referee for Britain's Royal Geographical Society. Barbara has lectured on David-Neel (the French explorer of Tibet) at universities, conferences, museums, and libraries worldwide—including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Cal Tech in the U.S., and Sidney, Buenos Aires, Prague, Mexico City, and Calgary among international venues.
Recently she spoke before an unprecedented joint meeting of the Harvard-MIT Club. Barbara has written numerous articles, for print and the Net, both scholarly and popular. These pieces have appeared in: New York Archives Magazine (2012) Tablet (Jewish magazine), Travel and Leisure, Richmond Review (London), Drexel Onlline Journal, North Dakota Quarterly, Journal of the West, Culturefront (Summer 2000), Nineteenth Century (cover story--Spring 2002), Jewish Quarterly, Jewish Currents (2006), California Territorial Quarterly (2007), PopMatters, Ascent (Canada), Amarillo Bay, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Ego (Indian magazine) 3am (2009, UK) Smith Magazine, Evergreen Review, Chimera (In English with French translation (2010), Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly as well as on the Net in popular sites dealing with sexuality, such as Nerve, Clean Sheets, Diverse Publications (UK), Ruthie's Club, Phaze anthology, Oysters & Chocolate, and Lucrezia (Australia), Playgirl, Sliptongue, Ravenous Romance anthology, Historynet. com, Huffington Post, Koktejl (Magazine Czech Republic), 2013.
Barbara has also published dozens of poems in journals in every English speaking country. She is included in Contemporary Authors, Who’s Who of American Women, Marquis Who’s Who.
Barbara is joint author of Three in Love: Menages a Trois from Ancient to Modern Times (HarperSF, 1997), which is presently an Authors Guild Selection available on iUniverse and Amazon. The subject of favorable feature stories in the Philadelphia Inquirer and NY's Daily News. Entertainment Weekly praised Three, calling it “racy and engaging”; the Washington Post said: “the first serious study of collective intimacy”; The New Yorker called it “a people’s almanac of love triangle lore.”
Barbara has been on the “Curiosity” show (Discovery channel 2012), interviewed by the BBC (Channel Four), CBC, ARTE (EU TV—international distribution), S. Korea's SBS-TV, and CBS' 20/20 for TV documentaries on Polyamory, Eve Ensler’s latest documentary on love as well as for articles in the New York Post and the Times Literary Supplement.
She is at work on a sequel to Three, which will be the definitive study of the history and psychology of plural love. Barbara has completed her intimate memoir of her experiences in New York and other exotic locales: The Confessions Club: the Secret Life of a Sexy Librarian. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Book Reviews
We can’t wait for the movie!
Bill Profita & Kevin Gallagher - WBRP-FM
A great new book to read in bed!
John Fugelsang - Sirius XM Satellite Radio Network
Having the time of their lives! . . . Life is Good!
Mike McDonnel - WLW-AM 700
Discussion Questions
1. If a wife is having outside affairs should she be honest and tell her husband?
2. Is the cougar relationship, older woman and younger man, a step forward or back in male female communication? Is a cougar woman letting herself in for real disappointment? Will the man sooner or later bond with someone closer to his age?
3. Can a woman safely travel to exotic spots these days with the world in such turmoil, terrorism, etc?
4. Does a mature woman have to make too many compromises to have a lover in her life? Will men back off, preferring a younger partner?
5. Can an intellectual woman prevail in relationships where the man expects her to keep her intelligence muted in order not to threaten him?
6. If a husband and wife's relationship is becoming dull, should they add a third to spice things up?
7. Can a husband and wife develop emotionally by their exposure to other, outside partners?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)