This is an interesting statement, considering it’s from someone who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1992 for her column “Public and Private,” in which she explored different ways to understand her life and the world at large in the heat of the present tense. I read her work regularly then, … Read More
Month: April 2015
“I had to live on the lip of a waterfall, exhausted.”
You might expect a coming-of-age book to have a plot, to describe the who-what-when-where-how-and-why. But Annie Dillard is not a typical person, nor is her book a typical memoir. She concentrated on describing how she wanted to notice and remember everything. Her goal was to “break up through the skin … Read More
“. . . now I understand that it was not so ordinary after all.”
With his wonderful metaphors and his trademark compassion, Ted Kooser is a poet with many gifts. The gift that I appreciate most is his ability to look at ordinary things — rain, clouds, trees — and see what no one else sees. “Spatters of raindrops cold as dimes, and … Read More
“The sort of strenuous reading and writing program I advocate — four to six hours a day, every day — will not seem strenuous if you really enjoy doing these things…”
Not since Charles Dickens has a writer had so many readers “by the throat,” observed a British review of this classic by Stephen King. Having sold more than 350 million books, King could be considered an expert at many things, perhaps chiefly at developing and maintaining a vivid imagination. The … Read More
With a ‘twofold identify,’ immigrants could embrace their new country, while simultaneously believing that ‘the old world’ was not to be discarded but would remain an inspiration and source of pride in the new.”
Is it possible to identify with two countries? My family has a fondness for Norway that is hard to explain. Our Norwegian heritage comes up in conversations all the time, which is why it might be surprising to learn that my family immigrated three generations ago. Apparently, this is … Read More