Category Archives: Books

Art out of Trauma

A disadvantage of book groups is that sometimes you have to read books that you never would have picked up on your own and that you don’t enjoy. The upside is that sometimes you have to read books that you … Continue reading

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That Is Poetry

My husband is reading one of my favorite books, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1831). He’s been tackling classics in recent years. I thought that was the reason for this choice, but just discovered he’s showing the 1939 Charles Laughton … Continue reading

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Question of the Day

Actually, two questions. Do you feel you have to finish a book once you start it, or are you okay with sometimes quitting on a book? If the latter, what are your criteria? How much of a chance do you … Continue reading

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Little Free Book

Occasionally someone will ask me how I choose what to read. It’s a hard question to answer, because there’s no overriding pattern to my choices. One book group meets once a month, the other every other month. That makes about … Continue reading

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Another Marvelous Thing

Laurie Colwin wrote memorable, funny novels (Happy All the Time, Family Happiness); ironic, pithy short stories (The Lone Pilgrim and other collections); and two volumes of essays about food: Home Cooking: A Writer in the Kitchen and More Home Cooking: … Continue reading

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Learning from Chaser

I used to introduce my Latin students to fundamental grammar by telling them about Chaser, the dog who knew a thousand words. Chaser, I would explain, learned the meaning of verbs such as fetch, paw (as in pawing her toys), … Continue reading

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Truth or Consequences?

How true to life should a memoir be? Is bending the facts or changing chronology allowed? How about just making stuff up? Many of us remember the controversy arising from James Frey’s 2003 memoir A Million Little Pieces, which, after … Continue reading

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Kalends, Calendars, and Intercalation

Our word calendar comes from the Latin word kalendae, or kalends, which named the first day of the month. (For a while, Latin used k instead of c before the letter a. Try not to pay attention to this right … Continue reading

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An Embarrassment of Desserts

When you create meringues, you have egg yolks left over. When you bake crème brulee, you have egg whites left over. Might as well make both! The meringues were going to a friend who recently suffered a loss in her … Continue reading

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Light(er) Reading

In November, I have read two new celebrity memoirs: Matthew Perry’s Friends, Lovers, and the Big, Terrible Thing and Geena Davis’s Dying of Politeness. Lest you judge me, I have also finished rereading Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, a famous … Continue reading

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