No other way to put it: May was a lovely month. Both the weather and my reading kept me charmed. There were a few misses, but overall it was my best reading month this year. I have no idea how I managed this but somehow, I read A Rule Against Murder, book 4 in the Inspector Gamache series, before reading The Cruelest Month, which is book 3. Mea culpa! Major faux ... Read More...
Educated: A Memoir
I’d always known my father believed in a different God. As a child, I’d been aware that although my family attended the same church as everyone in our town, our religion was not the same. They believed in modesty; we practiced it. They believed in God’s power to heal; we left our injuries in God’s hands. They believed in preparing for the Second Coming; we were ... Read More...
Alternate Side by Anna Quindlen
She’d realized that that was how life was, that certain small moments were like billboards forever alongside the highway of your memory. It is no secret I love Anna Quindlen. In the kind of way that makes me pushy about her, as in I’ve demanded innocent victims read her, because I think her voice is one of the best in fiction. I still believe that, but also realize ... Read More...
White Houses
Lenora Hickok was a formidable woman for her time. In fact, she’d probably still be considered a formidable woman. From a childhood of deprivation and abuse she went on to become a renowned reporter, which in the 1930s, was a huge achievement in and of itself. In 1928 she interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt for Life magazine, went on to cover Eleanor’s part in her husband’s 1932 ... Read More...
When Breath Becomes Air
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving suffering, virtue. Paul Kalanithi knew he would split his life in two—the first half would be devoted to his passion for ... Read More...
Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake
It’s odd when I think of the arc of my life, from child to young woman to aging adult. First I was who I was. Then I didn’t know who I was. Then I invented someone and became her. Then I began to like what I’d invented. And finally I was what I was again. I have been a huge fan of Anna Quindlen’s fiction for decades, but had never read any of her nonfiction until this month, ... Read More...
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