Sometimes I like light reading in the summer, especially from my favorite authors like Georges Simenon, Sue Grafton and Rex Stout, but sometimes I’m ready for heavy reading, a big ol’ hefty tome that tells you more than most people know about some period in history. Barbara Tuchman is in […]
Here’s my method for beating the heat: When I go swimming on a really hot day and keep my bathing suit on, I’m uncomfortable in a wet bathing suit, even though it’s really hot. BUT, if it’s really hot and I put on a damp shirt, it cools me off. […]
Just got back from a week in the Great Smoky Mountains in Georgia and North Carolina with my friends George and Abby and Dana and Rob and Holly. My trip started out in Atlanta, which is a happening town, as you probably know. It’s got a great public transit system […]
If you’re a fan of Maxfield Parrish, I’m sure you’ve seen the definitive work about him by Coy Ludwig. What you won’t find in Ludwig’s excellent collection of Parrish’s art is the real story of his life and his technique. Maxfield Parrish Jr. allowed Ludwig to publish many of his […]
I really enjoyed Henry Ward Beecher: An American Portrait by Paxton Hibben, which I’ve been reading for many months, a little bit at a time. It’s hard to take in, at one sitting, how loathsome one human being can be. Hibben has lots of interesting facts about Beecher’s upbringing in […]
With all the ornamental rhododendrons in full bloom here in the valley, I decided to head up to one of the largest rhododendron forests in North America in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. Silly me. Most of the ornamental rhodies you see in people’s yards are imported varieties which bloom sooner than […]
Reunions are a great opportunity to study history, society, and the stages of human life because the cohorts of graduates are segregated by age and on display in their distinctive plumage. I remember one day when my daughter Sarah was little and we went to the swimming hole at […]
Later this month I’ll be off to my 40th college reunion down in New Haven, Connecticut, which will always be, for me, the City of Falling Objects. Back in my college days, I was playing bridge with some friends of mine in the basement of a building constructed by Cornelius […]
There’s an excellent book making the rounds of our little poker circle called The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. Heller is a close friend of my cousin Max Hartshorne, who loved the book, and it was also very highly recommended by our buddy Ed Valerio, a combat veteran and military […]
Cousin Max dropped in last night and plugged me into Netflix and we watched a couple of episodes of Breaking Bad, which, as everyone else in the world knows, is a very very good series. Surprise, surprise. Viewers actually like great writing and great acting! I had only seen a […]