Decorating the tree has always been my favorite Christmas tradition. When I was a kid, we always bought our tree a few days before Christmas, at Robinson’s Market up the street from our house on Claster Boulevard, then placed it in a bucket with some water until Christmas Eve. Christmas Eve Day, our parents brought …
If you follow these things like I do, you’ll know the Booker Prize shortlist was announced September 23, and one of the six nominees, Kiran Desai, previously won the prestigious award in 2006. I haven’t yet read any of this year’s titles, but I’ve read multiple reviews and so was not surprised by Desai’s inclusion, …
(WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Jim Shepard’s “Privilege.”) In June 1972, the summer before my family and I moved from Philadelphia to Dauphin, Hurricane Agnes pummeled central Pennsylvania and flooded its Harrisburg capital, a scant seven miles from our soon to be constructed house. Even after we settled, its damage could be seen in …
I have adored Haruki Murakami for nearly twenty years, when one of my AP students introduced him to me as her favorite contemporary writer and Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World as her favorite book. Start there, she suggested. So I did, stopping at the bookstore on my way home from work because …
(third in an occasional series on Media Literacy) During the Big Brother season 26 live finale, the two remaining contestants vying to win its ninety-day competition were reunited with their previously evicted housemates. Seven sat on a jury that would vote to select the $750,000 winner, while the other seven had been sent home following …
At a recent online book club meeting, after we’d discussed Remarkably Bright Creatures but before deciding on titles for the fall, the group’s moderator—a friend of mine from college—raised the issue of character versus plot driven books, which type we preferred and which authors we believed “better” at it, which led us to chat about …
(fourth in an occasional series on BOOKS THAT MATTER & THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM) Forecasters had called for up to three inches of snow and high winds the mid-February day I spoke with Abigail Greenwood. A cozy fire flickered against one wall of her virtual background, while through the windows of another, a cheerful …
While I’m away, a story from the archives… To give a thing a name, a label, a handle; to rescue it from anonymity, to pluck it out of the Place of Namelessness, in short to identify it—well, that’s a way of bringing the said thing into being. — Iff to Haroun in Salman Rushdie’s Haroun …
Here in my corner of Pennsylvania, the first half of April was rainy and cold, but the second half was beautiful. Sunny blue skies and (mostly) seasonal temperatures, perfect for digging in the dirt. Hubby and I weeded and trimmed and mulched, and then I turned my attention to spring cleaning my secret garden, so …
(Second in an occasional series on BOOKS THAT MATTER AND THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE THEM) So what IS a book that matters? And who gets to choose? When I spoke with my friend Lorita Foster for this series, she confessed to being initially annoyed with my questions. “They’re not fair,” she said, thinking I wanted …
My Name was Supposed to be Elizabeth Ann 