Poem: Hamstring injury
Clutch, clench, the back of the thigh. Then, emptiness, a hollow, danger, a hobble, a caution, a warning. Tendons wear. Skin thins. The final hollow. Patrick T. Reardon 9.1.14
Meditation: The job of living
The prophet Jeremiah got exasperated with God: “You duped me, O Lord, and I let myself be duped; you were too strong for me, and you triumphed. All the day [...]
Book clubs aren’t about books. They’re about life.
This essay initially appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 7.27.14. When I was a young man, I reveled in my physical strength and intellectual acuity. Today, I’m very aware of [...]
Book review: “Summer of the Dead” by Julia Keller
Near the very end of Julia Keller’s new mystery Summer of the Dead (Minotaur, $25.99), I turned the page and shouted, “Holy shit!” Out of the blue, suddenly, stunningly, a [...]
Book Review: “Fierce Patriot” by Robert L. O’Connell
This review initially appeared in the Chicago Tribune on July 20, 2014. The American nation would be much different if Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman had never lived. Sherman was [...]
Book review: “Martin Luther” by Martin Marty
There are times, often, in his 2004 biography Martin Luther when Martin Marty seems more than a bit exasperated with his subject. Luther, he writes, was a man of paradoxes, [...]
How smart is Derek Jeter? He can do the math.
(Photographer: Keith Allison) The world of Major League Baseball was taken aback in February when New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter announced that he would retire at the end [...]
Book review: “Pete Rose: An American Dilemma” by Kostya Kennedy
Kostya Kennedy paints a compelling portrait of one of baseball’s greatest — and most scandal-laden — players in Pete Rose: An American Dilemma. The “dilemma” part, though, is more problematic. [...]
Book review: “Crazy Horse” by Larry McMurtry
A novelist writes history like a novelist, not like an historian. In Crazy Horse, Larry McMurtry tells the story of the Sioux warrior who was an Indian leader on the [...]
Book review: “The Long Mars” by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
The Long Mars is the third installment so far in a series of novels by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter — the earlier ones being The Long Earth and The [...]