Grace and I have been reading Harry Potter together for almost a year now. I read all seven books as soon as they came out, thoroughly enchanted by the world that JK Rowling created, and it’s been wonderful to revisit the story with Grace. Last December I wrote about how moved I was to reconsider [...]
I read Dominique Browning’s beautiful memoir, Slow Love, this weekend. Just last week I wrote about discovering her blog, Slow Love Life, and feeling as though I’d tumbled into an alternative universe filled with my own preoccupations, just far more gorgeously expressed. The book gave me the same feeling: it was as though my most [...]
My mother and I went to hear Mary Oliver read last night. She read in the chapel at Wellesley College, which was full to capacity – hundreds of people, standing room only. Katrina had described Mary Oliver as “elfin” to me and she is. Tiny and sparkling at the same time, wearing plain black, she [...]
I was privileged to attend a reading/discussion last night with Dani Shapiro and Darin Strauss, talking about the art of memoir. I had just finished Darin’s fantastic memoir, Half A Life, and we all know I’d walk to the ends of the earth for Dani. The event was fabulous – my super-incredible writer friend who [...]
This summer I read Gail Caldwell’s memoir about her friendship with Caroline Knapp, Let’s Take the Long Way Home. I loved it – I found myself weeping and smiling, thinking of those few people I love best, and sharing it with my mother who knows what it’s like to lose someone so dear they take [...]
I read Gail Caldwell’s Let’s Take the Long Way Home yesterday in one long, breathless gulp. The book is an elegant evocation of a true friendship between women, a heartbroken eulogy, and an unflinching exploration of what life looks like on the other side of an unimaginable loss. Written in Caldwell’s absolutely glorious prose, Let’s [...]
Emily (softly, more in wonder than in grief): I can’t bear it. They’re so young and beautiful. Why did they ever have to get old? Mama, I’m here. I’m grown up. I love you all, everything. – I can’t look at everything hard enough. …. Emily (in a loud voice to the Stage Manager): I [...]
I loved Martha’ McPhee’s Dear Money. The book’s voice is funny and smart, its observations nuanced and searing. Martha’s thoughtful commentary is both right on the money (as it were) and somewhat scary. There is so much in Dear Money that made me smile with wry identification, so many details that rang true from both [...]
I laughed. I cried. It was better than Cats. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is one of the funniest and wisest books that I’ve read in a long, long time. Rhoda Janzen is simply hilariously funny. I have rarely laughed out loud as often during a book as I did with this one. At [...]
My stack is out of control. I am hoping that this holiday weekend affords some serious reading time. I am always fascinated by what other people read, so thought I’d share the titles that are piled on my bedside table right now. I think what people read is a very good snapshot of what it [...]
