Poem: “Veronica”
Veronica Veronica is not a name given to many baby girls today. She wiped the face of Jesus at the side of the packed- stone street the condemned man [...]
Book review: “What If? — The World’s Foremost Military Historians Imagine What Might Have Been,” edited by Robert Cowley
.There is no point to the study of history if each event, each action, each decision is seen in some mechanistic manner — as if what happened had to happen. [...]
Book review: “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” by Michelle McNamara
People get obsessed. They get obsessed with growing orchids. With the fortunes of the Los Angeles Lakers or the Cincinnati Reds or the Cleveland Browns. With the stock market. With [...]
Finding a rich life by looking out the window: An interview with Patricia Hampl
Patricia Hampl laughs and says, “I have a list.” We’re talking over the phone about that bane of modern life, the to-do list, she in the kitchen of her St. [...]
Book review: “The David Story: A Translation with Commentary of 1 and 2 Samuel” by Robert Alter
It is a bit perplexing that the ancient story of David --- the giant-killer, king, adulterer, father, sinner and old man --- doesn’t have its own book in the Hebrew Bible. Instead, [...]
Poem: “The endless white around the corner”
The endless white around the corner I know it comes, not when. I am running to it, racing, straining, through the brittle leaves, the boggy mulch, deeply breathing [...]
Book review: “The Patron Saint of Cauliflower” by Elizabeth Cohen
Let me make clear I’m no cook or baker. I have, I’ll admit, followed the directions to produce a Betty Crocker cake (with canned frosting) with relatively edible results. And, [...]
Book review: “Noir” by Christopher Moore
Christopher Moore, the author of 15 wacky novels, explains in an afterword that he had planned for his latest book Noir to be about a “poor working mug” who got [...]
Book review: “A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, published in 2016, is a pleasant book, so playful and light that I fully expected to find, once I’d finished reading the novel, [...]
Book review: “Zaftig: A Case for Curves” by Edward St. Paige
It’s not often that the National Catholic Reporter gets quoted in an art book. Nonetheless, the Catholic newspaper’s headline over a 1995 story by Demetria Martinez commenting on popular notions [...]