A motley bouquet
It’s a new year. 2022. Wow. The old year is behind us, never to be repeated. And many I have heard saying, good riddance.
Art, antiquities and adventure
Today, as it turns out, was a good day to read. Rainy, blustery, cold—perfect November weather. Perfect, as long as you didn’t have to be outside, which (happily) was the case for me
Story of a Charlotte farm and orchard: New book by Vermont author
A new book by Vermont author David Holmes probes what it means to be a Vermonter through chronicling the history of his family’s multigenerational farm.
A good book
Before I came upon Seating Arrangements, I had never heard of Maggie Shipstead, It seems she went to Harvard University, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and went on to become a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Seating Arrangements is one of three novels—along with Astonish Me and Great Circle (currently shortlisted for the Booker Prize).
Home Made…What We Make When We Make Dinner
Since I’m a retired teacher of roughneck kids as well as a volunteer cook at the Senior Center, it seemed inevitable that I’d read Home Made: A Story of Grief, Groceries, Showing Up—and What We Make When We Make Dinner.
Beholding the lilacs and two good books
It isn’t easy to compose an article on a laptop while sitting outside in the sun, but this day is too beautiful to spend sitting inside in a darkened room, so I’m going to try. I don’t think I have ever experienced a more beautiful spring than the one we are having.
What you might consider reading next, Part One
Happy New Year, Readers! I hope you made it through the transition healthy and intact and that this year will bring peace, harmony, much needed national stability, and some more snow would be nice, too. 2021. I’m ready. I really am.
The island calls you home
Hello, again. It seems like awhile since my last article, but who knows…time seems a bit hard to keep track of lately. I find that one day often kind of blends into another, and if pressed I frequently couldn’t tell you the date or day of the week.
Two outstanding but very different books at the turn of a new decade
The holidays are over and I’m feeling a bit numb. The Christmas tree is still up, a light snow is falling, the dogs are trying to convince me that a second dinner is in order, and my youngest child, a senior in college, is sitting here on the couch applying to grad school (although right now I could swear she is dozing).
Snuggle up with a book and travel without leaving the house
Hello, readers. I hope you have been well. I hope you had a good Halloween, which would have been tricky, as the weather was about as wet as I have ever seen a Halloween get. There were lots of umbrellas, I noticed, and some very sodden goblins roaming the streets….
Three 2019 fiction favorites for your fall reading list
While we still have a few months to go, there are a few books that I already know will make my favorites of 2019 list. It has been a great year for fiction, and these three books were five-star reads for me. When I think about what makes a book memorable, not only is it completely engrossing while I am reading it, but I think about it long after I have finished it.
The delights, and dangers, of summer reading
For the past few weeks, having had (for too many of these beautiful days) a series of headaches, it occurred to me that I might try PT. I know a PT person who is very good—I’d been to her before for other issues—and someone had suggested to me that she might be able to help with my headaches, so I made an appointment and went.
Movie Review: Blade Runner
Blade Runner, released in 1982 but set in 2019, is regarded as one of the greatest all-time science fiction films. It has a 90 percent critics rating and a 91 percent audience rating (from 337,019 audience members) on Rotten Tomatoes and is available for purchase or rent on Amazon Prime and YouTube.
For the love of mothers
Though the roads are muddy and the days are more often than not overcast, spring is here and Mother’s Day is around the corner. Mother’s Day: a “celebration honoring the mother of the family, as well as motherhood, maternal bonds, and the influence of mothers in society,” as Wikipedia describes it. (I googled it not because I didn’t know what Mother’s Day is but to get the actual date on which it falls this year, which if you didn’t know is May 12.)
Three memoirs you should add to your spring reading list
I read for all kinds of reasons, sometimes for pleasure, sometimes to escape. Other times I read to learn new perspectives.
It’s reading time
It’s nine degrees out now, two earlier this morning. A fire is roaring in the fireplace here, the sun is going down (though it seems as though it was just lunchtime), and the pug is snoring on the couch. A tea is at my elbow and the house is making creaking noises. It’s reading season. I have just ventured upstairs and gathered up a few of the books I have read since last time we spoke. I am now back at my seat by the fire (which I do not intend to leave anytime soon), ready to go.
Is there ice on the lake and snow on the trail?
Charlotte-raised author Leath Tonino published a book this year through the Trinity University Press, San Antonio, Texas, titled The Animal One Thousand Miles Long: Seven Lengths of Vermont and Other Adventures.
The magic of Uncle Wiggily and other wonderful stories
When I was little, my father (a big reader) had a collection of Uncle Wiggily books. They were books he’d owned as a child. We probably had 20 of these books, each containing three stories and amazing drawings.