Essay: Well, how many books can $30 buy at the Newberry Book Fair?
When I headed to the Newberry Library Book Fair on a Friday at the end of July, I knew I had to come up with a strategy. It’s a locally [...]
Poem: “1950s”
1950s By Patrick T. Reardon . I put my faith in the Cisco Kid riding TV with fat guy (Oh, Poncho!)— through desert as I watch — it’s really happening! [...]
Book review: “The Odyssey” by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
Emily Wilson, a classical studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, set herself a challenging task — to translate Homer’s Odyssey into modern English in lines of iambic pentameter. To [...]
Book review: “Freaky Deaky” by Elmore Leonard
I have a theory about Elmore Leonard’s 1988 novel Freaky Deaky. I suspect that one of the main characters, Donnell Lewis — an ex-Black Panther and ex-con who is sort [...]
Book review: “The Last Planet,” originally “Star Rangers,” by Andre Norton
In early July, I tested positive for Covid, and, within hours, I’d started a regimen of five days of Paxlovid. I had a range of mild symptoms, not bad, and [...]
Book review: “David: The Divided Heart” by David Wolpe
Near the end of his concise life of the Bible’s David, David Wolpe writes: He is such a contradictory personality that even the ancient rabbis confessed: “We are unable [...]
Essay: What Would Jesus Do in Old Age?
by Patrick G. Reardon and Patrick T. Reardon . When you get to be old farts as we are, you recognize that Jesus never made it to his 70s or [...]
Book review: “Galaxy Quest” by Terry Bisson
As the cover for Terry Bisson’s Galaxy Quest makes clear, the novel really isn’t completely Bisson’s. It’s the novelization of a screenplay for the comic movie Galaxy Quest by Robert [...]
Poem: As if crying
As if crying By Patrick T. Reardon . Month money envelopes, unlabeled something cans, irregulared clothing, big boy, little kids, duty. . Shoes on sideboard, morning machine. Line up, line [...]
Book review: “Millions” by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Nine-year-old Damian Cunningham and his brother Anthony, a year older, are at a bank in their English town, trying to open an account in which to put a bag-load of [...]