While I was doing research for my trip to Squam Lake, aka Golden Pond, I picked up Jane Fonda’s book My Life So Far and Henry Fonda’s autobiography as told to somebody or other. Jane’s autobiography is a fascinating read — and amazing insight into that era by someone who […]
I’m really pleased that my daughter Sarah has created the idea of American acceptualism, which I adore, to replace the idea of American exceptionalism, which I despise. Now Mitt Romney has just written a book espousing American exceptionalism. Does that mean I despise Mitt Romney? Christian Buddhist though I am, […]
I had a really swell time with my daughter Sarah up on Squam Lake last weekend. It was overcast Friday and Saturday, but Sarah got a treatment at the spa and we had a great time at the Squam Lake Natural Science Center and the Sandwich Historical Society and the Sandwich Grange […]
Will McGough, a friend I met on a trip to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma, was good enough to send me his first work of fiction, “A Collection of Short Stories: Thoughts From My Early Twenties.” These are short stories, mostly in the form of dialogue in the manner of […]
I may have danced a little jig in the stacks of the Whately Antiquarian Book Center on Saturday when I discovered a copy of A Doctor in Homespun, a privately published autobiography of Dr. Mary Phylinda Dole, the first female doctor in Franklin County. I found a copy at a […]
When Noel Coward told Gore Vidal that he (Coward) had never had sex with a woman, Vidal asked, “Not even with Gertie Lawrence?” referring to Coward’s famous stage partner. Coward replied, “Particularly not with Miss Lawrence.”
I just picked up and devoured Summer’s Lease by John Mortimer, who is famous for the wonderful Rumpole of the Bailey series, but wrote lots of other funny books, plays and screenplays including Paradise Postponed, A Voyage Round My Father, and Tea With Mussolini. If you haven’t read his books, you’re lucky […]
This blog is about the enjoyment I get from books I find at flea markets and tag sales, and, I have to add, used book stores like the Whately Antiquarian Book Center. It was there I found a copy of Biographies and Legends of the New England Indians by Leo […]
I was really impressed with a play written and performed by three Pioneer Valley actors, Court Dorsey, John Sheldon and Al Miller called “Ambush on T Street.” They’re performed it several times locally and are now kind of figuring out where to go next with it. Lots of us know John […]
