A blog reader sent me a news clipping from the October 14, 2014 edition of the Wall Street Journal. The article reviews two books where the authors take differing positions on the importance of grammar and style. (“Book Review: ‘Gwynne’s Grammar’ N.M. Gwynne & ‘The Sen
In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne imagined deep water submarines. In I, Robot, Isaac Asimov dreamed of machines with personalities. J. K. Rowling envisioned an invisibility cloak in Harry Potter. Why take note of this? Because, so often, fiction imagines po
In the early 1970s, I worked hard to pass an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) that would grant women equal protection under the law. The movement didn’t succeed and today, many of my sex feel such a law is unnecessary. Happily a few have begun to rethink the question and to reevalua
Recently, a reader sent me a blog by Roy A. Barnes, a writer from southeastern Wyoming who devotes his space to the business of getting published. One of his articles provided definitions, in layman’s terms, of the legal rights publishers seek before printing a work. I thought
I’ve always been fascinated with Astronomy. As a teenager I helped put together a monthly astronomer’s newsletter supported by the Griffith Park Observatory in Southern California and meant for amateur enthusiasts. When I got to college my interests took a different turn, bu
The other evening, PBS news featured an interview with Lev Grossman who has published the 3rd book in his fantasy trilogy. The new title is, The Magician’s Land. What’s interesting about the author’s work is that it’s targeted to adults rather than to young readers. Gros
In the September 17 issue of Atlantic Monthly, physician Zeke Emanuel explains why he hopes to die by the age of 75. His reasoning is that by 75, he will have “made whatever contributions, important or not, I am going to make.” He complains that our society is stretching life
I admit I have little knowledge about Muslims or their faith. At best, I brushed shoulders with a few while traveling in East Africa. My most memorable encounter was with my safari guide in Uganda. During one of our many chats, he mentioned a custom in his country that obliged a w
Richard Dawkins has published the first of his two part memoir, An Appetite for Wonder, and John Gray, emeritus professor of European thought at the London School of Economics, has taken the work apart with surgical deftness. He depicts Dawkins as a man who is facile in his thinking