Beach Reads Without the Beach

Last night I finished reading Travels With My Aunt by Graham Greene.  Things being what they are in the world, I’ve been having a bit of trouble focusing on anything more challenging than Big Bang Theory reruns, so I was looking for something light and maybe even funny.  This popped up as a dollar ninety-nine … Continue reading Beach Reads Without the Beach

Fall On Your Knees, a book review

Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald is a larger than life story, a convoluted tale of family secrets and lies.  At least three times in the novel the action occurs in clumps, and over the course of a few days or even a single night, there is more family melodrama than all of Shakespeare’s … Continue reading Fall On Your Knees, a book review

How Madelaine Survives Quarantine

Written with my Thursday night writing group (now meeting on Zoom!) with the prompts:  one red shoe and oh, dear. Madelaine wore one red shoe and one green shoe because it was Christmas and she was in a wild holiday mood.  She wondered, do cats see color?—because it was only the cats who would see … Continue reading How Madelaine Survives Quarantine

The Story of My Hydrangea Bush

I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I was dipping into Sleeping on the Wing by Kenneth Koch and Kate Farrell, an anthology of poetry and writing prompts written for children and teens.  In a chapter on D.H. Lawrence, the authors note that Lawrence called his poems “acts of attention.”  They prompt readers to give … Continue reading The Story of My Hydrangea Bush

Black Lives Matter

This has been a very upsetting couple of weeks, but if you’re paying attention you already know that.  Because of the continuing pandemic, I choose to be mostly homebound, writing, reading, zooming, watching fun stuff on TV like Star Trek and Christopher Guest mockumentaries.  But this week I could barely tear myself away from CNN, … Continue reading Black Lives Matter

Continued Sheltering, part three

Greetings!  If you’re a regular reader, you know the past two weeks I’ve suggested some prayers that I’ve found helpful, and I continue to encourage everyone to write prayers and affirmations too.  It’s funny, because almost as soon as the first post went up, I began to feel kind of down.  And so I felt … Continue reading Continued Sheltering, part three

The Dutch House, a review

The Amazon tagline describes this novel by Ann Patchett as the story of a family that goes from poverty to riches to poverty and back to riches again.  Well, yeah, but that hardly prepares us for the plot of this book.  More than a few reviewers call it a fairy tale.  I just didn’t see … Continue reading The Dutch House, a review

Sheltering-in-Place

When I was 21 I went to Europe on a five-week student tour with my best friends.  On our last day we were in England, and we went on a boat ride down the Thames to Greenwich.  I have several memories of that day, a few funny stories, conversations, photos, but there was one image … Continue reading Sheltering-in-Place

Little Fires Everywhere, a consideration of race and class in America

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng is a well-written, topical book, an engrossing read, and the basis for a brand-new series starring Kerry Washington and Reese Witherspoon on Hulu.  I want to tell you what I think about it, but let’s face it, I’m sure you can go online or pick up a TV guide … Continue reading Little Fires Everywhere, a consideration of race and class in America

The World That We Knew, a review

Alice Hoffman’s “The World That We Knew” is an achingly beautiful fairy tale about the Holocaust.  Her novel emphasizes the plight of children separated from their parents:  Jewish children and the offspring of Resistance Fighters hiding with false ID’s in convent schools; others roaming by themselves or in small groups in the forest, foraging for … Continue reading The World That We Knew, a review