Food, Glorious Food

Sunday, June 22, 2008

"I learn my lesson, she says. I learn that male characters do not appreciate anybody who tries to ward off surplus tissue. What male characters wish, is substance."
--Damon Runyon, “A Piece of Pie”

Food as home, food as power, food as an extreme sport, in three works by two classic humorists and a contemporary novelist.

Loving Libraries

Sunday, June 15, 2008

"James’ reading was a thing apart, an emanation of his in-most self, unaffected by fashion, or elocutionary artifice. He read from his soul, and no one who never heard him read poetry knows what that soul was."
- Edith Wharton, “A Backward Glance: Henry James”
Three tributes to the power of libraries and the books they hold.

Lessons in parenting

Sunday, June 01, 2008

"Perhaps this is what people meant when the talked about ‘falling in love’. The desire to be with someone everyday, for the rest of her life, so strong, sometimes she frightened herself.” -- Yiyun Le, “Extra"

Poignant lessons in parenting from an American master and a contemporary Chinese author.