I have heard for years about the Lilith Fair, and when I asked who Lilith was, I always heard, “Adam’s first wife,” and that was puzzling to me because I couldn’t find any reference to her in the bible. Turns out she’s not in the bible, but she’s mentioned in […]
I have blogged before, on numerous occasions, abour my effort to get rid of the clutter in my house. I have undertaken a mission of ‘Swedish death cleaning’ to relieve my heirs of the problem of getting rid of my clutter. So when I come upon a volume that I […]
Some years ago, on a car trip, my daughter and I listened to a tape of How the Irish Saved Civilization, a really superb book by Thomas Cahill, about how Christianity, and learning, and even literacy, and all the writings of Greek and Roman authors, were all confined by pagan […]
I’m having tremendous fun with a book by a friend of mine, Laszlo Tikos, called “Gogol’s Art: A Search for Identity.” Laszlo was a professor of Russian literature at UMass for many years, and with this book he has added a whole new dimension to my appreciation for one of […]
when I saw a copy of Destry Rides Again by Max Brand at a tag sale, I picked it up, thinking of the excellent movie with Henry Fonda as Tom Destry and Marlene Diectrich as Frenchy, the saloon owner who famously sings “See What the Boys in the Back Room […]
When I learned earlier this year that my Uncle Nat had cancer and his days were numbered, I went into a sort of shock. I just wasn’t ready to lose him. I still find it very hard to accept the loss. He was such an inspiration to me my entire […]
Thank you, Sue Grafton, wherever you are, for many, many hours of enjoyable reading. The value of your books is partly your great talent, but it was mostly your hard work, and I want you to know it is greatly appreciated. I read your books every five years or so, […]
It was with deep sadness that I learned this week of the passing of Bob Hay, a close friend of nearly fifty years, a man who delighted me with his whimsical art and poetry and who, through our many discussions of life’s big questions, shaped my world view and my […]
I really became immersed in The Sixties, the last volume of Edmund Wilson’s journals. There was a lot of interesting stuff about our family, conversations with my grandmother, who was his first cousin, and her brother Sandy who was his classmate at Princeton along with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Wilson was […]
I was looking through my mother’s scrapbooks and correspondence because one of her close friends recently passed away and I was looking for a letter she wrote to my mom when they were little girls. My mom saved everything — letters, of course, but also birthday cards, tickets to the […]