It’s that time of the year again, the end (or near the end), when
we readers revisit the books that impacted us, the stories that made us
laugh and cry, shake our heads in wonder or bow down in respect. For me, the
year’s...
Let me tell you something about writers that you may not know.
And by writers, I can only speak for those of us whose main commodity is human
emotion. Other writers—those who deal in history, or intricately woven plots,...
I chose Moonglow as the final novel for my summer of reading
only books by Michael Chabon. Dutiful readers of this blog will recall that I
took a break to cleanse my palette with some short stories somewhere in...
Going through our mother’s papers, my sister recently found
a copy of this essay, which I wrote in my early twenties, about the experience
of meeting my birth family for the first time. Tomorrow is the thirty-year
anniversary...
I’d like to begin this post by reminding readers
how much I LOVED The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. This is an
incredible novel! Buy it! Read it! Also, I enjoyed The Mysteries of Pittsburgh very
much...
You know, when I decided on this Summer of Chabon thing, I
neglected to mention one sort of intangible reason that pushed me onto this
path. As I mentioned in my last post, I absolutely loved The Amazing Adventures
of...
Every summer, I seem to find more reading time, which
means I finish a disproportionate amount of books over these balmy, relaxed
months. Also, I like to have some sort of summer reading project. Maybe I choose
a...
Have you ever purchased a new car and suddenly, out on the
road, you see many others of the same make and model? They were always there; you didn't notice before. What about when you look up the definition of a word you’ve...
My mother passed away on April 12, almost a month ago now. At some point, I may be ready to write much more about her (in fact, I feel she'll be a part of everything I write moving forward), but for now I'll make a memorial...
“There are only two or three human stories, and they go on
repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before.” --Willa Cather
I was thinking about this quote a few years...
Tell yourself you’re doing it for humanity. Teeming, varied,
rushing life. What binds us here in this place? What makes us pass
each other in the street and pause, looking into another’s face to notice: I see you. I understand....
"As soon as we express something, we devalue it strangely. We believe ourselves to have dived down into the depths of the abyss, and when we once again reach the surface, the drops of water on our pale fingertips no longer resemble the ocean from which they came...Nevertheless, the treasure shimmers in the darkness unchanged." ---Franz Kafka
