The earth speaks; hopefully, we’re listening
Somehow in the last couple years scanning the stacks and shelves of our local library and indie bookstore, I missed seeing an important book focused on and designed for the times we are living in. “Spiritual Ecology: The Cry of the Earth” (The Golden Sufi Center Publishing, 309 pages, 2021), edited by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee, is a compendium of essays and poems addressing all the requisite issues that the word “ecology” implies.
Anne Tyler gives us another never-ending song
It’s always nice when the good things just keep coming.
Books vs. the winter blues — and books win
It’s another one of those unremarkable winter afternoons when the outside temp is identical to the inside of my refrigerator, the sky is as gray as a friar’s habit, and the wind has just enough of a whistle to sting an old man’s cheeks.
‘Being a Ballerina’ includes powerful life lessons
This year, the women’s basketball team of Christendom College, a small school in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, includes a forward, Catherine Thomas, who has averaged 27.7 points and 14.8 rebounds per game. Those are outstanding percentages in any league, no matter its size.
Frozen: A review of ‘The Memoirs of Stockholm Sven’
One way to enjoy winter is to read about someone who lives north of the Arctic Circle. It’s never going to be that cold here, is the idea.
Traveling south to find America
“Appalachia can give us an eye towards how the national personality refracts like a diamond into a thousand rays” — Imani Perry
Dylan scores with ‘The Philosophy of Modern Song’
This was a fine morning in the coffee shop.
Resurrected: a review of Mark Twain’s ‘Is He Dead?’
Samuel Clemens, best known by his penname Mark Twain, is arguably the master of American novelists, with his great classic “Huckleberry Finn” along with such stories as “Tom Sawyer,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,”and “The Gilded Age.”
‘McMullen Circle’ and picks for teen readers
It’s 1969-1970, and the world is changing at a fierce pace. The civil rights movement grips America’s cultural arena, and the war in Vietnam is raging.
Straight up or subtle satire? You decide
Writers of fiction find themselves under several obligations. First and perhaps foremost, they must entertain their readers, enticing them to keep turning the pages. Doing so means creating believable characters who must get past some challenging hurdles, whether those involve love, war, nature, or other obstacles.