Category Archives: Books

Come Together

After the 2016 election, my Pollyanna side (perpetually battling my inner Eeyore) posited a hopeful theory. Possibly, I thought to myself, Donald Trump will bring Americans together. Possibly, I thought, his very badness would open Republicans’ eyes, and we would, … Continue reading

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Political Patois

The eye-opening content and transgressive humor of Tim Miller’s Why We Did It: A Travelogue from the Republican Road to Hell (2022) deserve attention, but they will have to wait for another day. Instead, I want to focus on Miller’s … Continue reading

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Parapros . . .What??

I never encountered paraprosdokian before, but I liked it as soon as we met. David Bordwell introduced us, by way of his 2016 book, The Rhapsodes: How 1940s Critics Changed American Film Culture. Bordwell, one of my husband’s favorite critics, … Continue reading

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Baltimore Boys

I wrote about R. Eric Thomas here, describing Thomas’s hilarious take on Mister Rogers and the mythical land of Bubbleland in his book of essays, Here for It, or, How to Save Your Soul in America. Last week I read Thomas’s … Continue reading

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Lots of Good Fun That Is Funny

Amid my interesting reading lately, I enjoyed revisiting a classic yesterday. Twice. The sun did not shine. It was too wet to play. So we sat in the house All that cold, cold, wet day. The opening pages of Dr. … Continue reading

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Prose and Poetry

I let a few weeks pass after finishing Mozart: The Reign of Love before tackling American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, another massive tome. Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin’s 2006 biography served as a source … Continue reading

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An Absolute Pleasure

The Latin verb solvere, like English’s to put or to take lends itself to multitudinous idioms. It can mean “to untie,” “to release,” “to unbind,” “to loosen what restricts,” “to throw off,” “to pay,” and on and on. The word’s … Continue reading

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No Trouble in Bubbleland

Here’s a writer you’ll not only probably enjoy but who will make you feel a little bit better. I learned of R. Eric Thomas through our mutual friend (just kidding) Ann Patchett, the novelist, who featured his new book in … Continue reading

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A Scottish Play on Words

As the credits rolled, I leaned toward my companion. “Is the Maltese falcon a MacGuffin?” I asked. “Um,” he replied, “I always sort of forget what a MacGuffin is.” That evening, referring the question to Mr. Wikipedia, we learned that … Continue reading

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A Christmas Carol in January

It’s no longer the holiday season, but, because I’d been thinking for a while about rereading Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, I finally did it today. Like (I imagine) many people, I supposed I knew the story. I recalled the … Continue reading

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