Book Review: “Wandering Stars”

Avid science fiction readers are familiar with several common themes: good-humored adaptation to inhospitable conditions by people who didn’t ask to be there; unfamiliar languages, customs, and alien or inscrutable jargon; the guiding, intervention, or oversight by unseen-but-powerful forces and/or beings; and the triumph against insurmountable odds by those armed with little more than intelligence… Continue reading Book Review: “Wandering Stars”

Farewell to Abbye

Abbye took her last breath today, bringing to an end a life that was harder than she deserved. After battling through almost three years of diabetes (two daily insulin shots) and Cushing’s Disease (regular doses of a powerful anti-cancer medication), her little heart finally gave out. I wish I could say that she was the… Continue reading Farewell to Abbye

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Book Reviews: “Patriotic Grace” and “Jim the Boy”

I took a break from exploring for forgotten gems in our home library and read two new (to me) books a couple of weekends ago. Peggy Noonan’s Patriotic Grace: What It Is and Why We Need It Now (published earlier this month) and Tony Earley’s Jim the Boy (published in 2001) are both short, quick-reading… Continue reading Book Reviews: “Patriotic Grace” and “Jim the Boy”

Book Review: “Proust and the Squid”

…the goal of reading is to go beyond the author’s ideas to thoughts that are increasingly autonomous, transformative, and ultimately independent of the written text. … The experience of reading is not so much an end in itself as it is our best vehicle to a transformed mind, and, literally and figuratively, to a changed… Continue reading Book Review: “Proust and the Squid”

Book Review: “The Road”

In his devilish little book called A Reader’s Manifesto: An Attack on the Growing Pretentiousness in American Literary Prose (reviewed in these pages in 2006), B.R. Myers devotes an entire chapter to Pulitzer prize winner Cormac McCarthy, calling his prose unspeakable in every sense of the word. That and similar pronouncements were at the front… Continue reading Book Review: “The Road”

Fire Ant Sightings

Once upon a time there was a boy. We’ll call him Robert, since that was his name. Robert was an odd little boy, for many reasons, but not the least of which was his obsession with princesses. As you might imagine, this made for some challenging times during recess, and those challenges continued throughout his… Continue reading Fire Ant Sightings

Book Review: “The Year of Living Biblically”

A.J. Jacobs’s first book, The Know-It-All, chronicled his quest to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica from A-to-Z. Jacobs has now extended his version of literary flagpole-sitting to the Bible in The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, in which he describes his attempts to adhere to… Continue reading Book Review: “The Year of Living Biblically”

Book Review: “Grace (Eventually)”

Anne Lamott continues to exasperate – and, occasionally, infuriate – me. Her latest book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, takes up where the previous one left off, and you might recall my less than warm review of that one. I had expectations of a kinder, gentler Lamott for this book, based on the pre-release publicity.… Continue reading Book Review: “Grace (Eventually)”