Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
APRIL 6, 2020 – (Cont.) The next day came. My sister Jenny called from New York to give us a full report on the view from her family’s apartment. In the sitting room adjoining my wife’s book office, I put Jenny on speaker and chatted away. The conversation drew my wife from her office (her …
APRIL 5, 2020 – A week ago while out for a walk, my wife and I encountered our neighbor Kent, who was himself out for a walk–his good wife Joan, a 3M health specialist, was working hard from home. At a distance of a lot more than twice the recommended gap, we carried on a …
FEBRUARY 23, 2020 – Someone in my book club (not I) had the bright idea of choosing a biography of Beethoven by the American scholar/composer/teacher, Jan Swafford. Nearly 1,000 pages long, this “score” is no beach book. I’m only at page 420—with 12 days before our book club meeting. I’d previously read George Marek’s tome about …
JANUARY 17, 2020 – Undaunted, he worked doggedly for admission into another Polish university, less selective than Jagiellonian University, but nonetheless, boasting a top-flight history department. He labored under the tutelage of a legendary scholar/professor, and then made a second attempt at Jagiellonian University. He passed. (In a “small world” aside, my wife and I …
JANUARY 8, 2020 – This month’s selection for my book club is Strength in What Remains by Tracy Kidder. It follows the extraordinary geographic and psychological journey of “Deogratias,” a native of Burundi in Central East Africa, who survives horrors and overcomes setbacks that would have crushed any normal person. His story is replete with …