“When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.” Desiderius Erasmus When I walk past a bookstore, I feel a tug, something lures me inside. For me, it’s an easy temptation: to peruse the shelves, glean the owner’s or clerk’s latest recommendations, curl up […]
Paterfamilias
Books, like life, are filled with good—sometimes even great—fathers. Ditto for the tyrants. For every noble Atticus Finch-like character, there are some real stinkers, the love-to-hate-them kind of Dad, like Larry Cook, a modern-day King Lear, in “A Thousand Acres.”
It is easy to cheer for the good guys and boo the baddies, but what about the in-betweens, those who are neither patient nor prudent, but who are certainly not evil? Often, it is the flawed characters―the quirky, irresponsible, feckless, fickle, irascible, hyperbolic, conflicted, cowardly, and sometimes even absent―who make the most engagingly readable characters.
Grave Lessons
Celebrate Libraries: Great & Small
Read…And Be Dangerous!
March 8 is International Women’s Day, a date that garners a lot of attention on the global stage. In some countries, it is even a national holiday. Ironically, while a fine celebration in name, the honoring is more theory and show than actual practice, especially in places where women are subjected to numerous hardships and […]
Letters, Leaders and Legacies
Volumes have been published about the lives of U.S. Presidents. Abraham Lincoln’s life alone has inspired more than 15,000 titles. In fact, Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership once displayed a three-story tower made from 6,800 books written about Lincoln. But, when I think about past presidents, my thoughts quickly shift from books about […]
Books That Sustain Us
I love reading. That’s evident in the creation of this blog. Books teach me what I didn’t know, break open my self-imposed boundaries, inspire my next steps, entertain me and enrich my hours. If you’re reading this, you know exactly what I mean. But there’s something else about books we don’t often consider: books sustain us. […]