Fragile

Due partly to the fact that daylight savings time is something invented by adults, and as such has absolutely nothing to do with the natural circadian rhythms of sleeping that animals and small children follow, Bean has been waking up quite early this past week. There have been many early mornings when the sky is […]

Broken For You, by Stephanie Kallos

With a haphazard cast of characters, Broken For You tells the story of an elderly woman who has been diagnosed with brain cancer, and her growing friendship with a young woman who was abandoned as a child. It also tells a complex story of forgiveness and creativity: the young woman makes mosaics that document […]

Literary diet.

After a morning of silver gray skies, rain came down, filling up puddles and freckling my sweatshirt on the way to dinner at the local vegetarian cafe. We talked about classic literature versus modern popular literature over our plates of pasta. Modern literature, we agreed, often seems to be targeted at a specific audience. Chick […]

Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, by Catherine Newman

Before I knew about blogs (holy moly, was there really such a time?) I eagerly devoured Newman’s weekly installments on babycenter.com which were later compiled into this book. When I was gigantically pregnant and my stomach looked like a huge gibbous moon, I’d read excerpts from her weekly post to my husband over dinner. He […]

White Oleander, Janet Fitch

I’ not quite sure how to describe this book. Fierce, maybe, or passionate, or frightening. I read it first before the movie came out, and have never watched the movie–so the images in my mind, indelible and searing, are the product of my imagination and Fitch’s sharp, beautiful writing. The story follows the daughter of […]

Bean’s version of my ‘read every day’ category

No book review today. Though this IS my copy of Pam Houston’s A LITTLE MORE ABOUT ME, which I’ve been intending to finish reading for over a month now. It doesn’t hold me like her other book, which was fast paced, silly and apt. But then agian, haven’t had much time to really sink my […]

Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

I can’t give you any advice but this; to go into yourself and see how deep the place is from which your life flows; at its source you will find the answer to the question of whether you must create.
In college, my girlfriends and I would sit around late at night drinking Merlot or […]

Operating Instructions, Anne Lamott

The book that made me feel sane, during those early weeks of baby when I could do nothing more than stagger about, nurse, and gasp for water. Lamott is funny, poignant and accurate. My copy (paperback) is dog-eared and marked with pen. And, for the record, it’s one of maybe a half dozen books I’ve […]

Eating the Honey of Words, By Robert Bly

I remember exactly when I bought this book. DH and I had gone out to Nantucket the summer of my senior year in college. We went on the ferry and spent the day riding rented bikes around the island. I couldn’t believe how quaint it was:shingled houses, grey from the weather and covered with rosebushes, […]

The Sun Magazine, Sy Syfransky-Editor

This magazine is responsible for making me want to keep writing. Each month I get this magazine and within hours, I’ve read it nearly cover to cover. I’ve met Sy, and several authors including Sparrow and Alison Leuterman. Both the magazine and the people who write for it convey a commitment to mindfulness in […]