A MOST IMPORTANT GIFT I spent much of yesterday writing letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience and victims of war. I’m a member of Amnesty International and have been writing these letters for years. During the Christmas holidays, we are allowed to write directly to those bein

THOUGHTS ON ORDER AND DISORDER I’ve been reading the professional critiques on the new Harry Potter movie, “Deathly Hollows,” based on the book by J. K. Rowling. Most of the comments are friendly. A few are not. One point they all make and agree upon is that a person dro

PEEVISH THOUGHTS ON A PEEVISH DAY I picked up a battered paperback book the other day: “Stephen Hawking, Quest for the Theory of Everything.” It’s not written by Hawking. It’s a biography by Kitty Ferguson but the work is heavy on science, as might be expected. Yesterd

THE HUMILITY IN LEAVES As winter approaches, the lines of a Shakespearean sonnet sometimes reverberate through my head:                                 “That time of year thou mayest in me behold,                          �

LADDER OF SUCCESS Over coffee, a friend told me she’d received a book contract from a small company for her first novel. But when I offered my congratulations, the corners of her mouth drooped. She admitted she’d rejected the contract because it required a $500 fee. Obviously she�

THANK YOU MRS. BROWN During In my walk through the park the other day, I rounded a corner and was struck by what I mistook for a change in the landscape. When I looked again, I discovered it was an illusion. I was staring at a reflection of the sky in a pool of muddy water. I walked o

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE   Some friendships are forged over time and the relationship grows stronger with the passing years. But some are born in a crisis, like the characters from the screenplay, “Thelma and Louise.”  The latter kind is what I call a supernova friendship. It begins

 IN HONOR OF US In his poem, “To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence,” James Elroy Flecker expresses his curiosity about life after he is gone:                                …have you wine and music still,                    �

Loved the book. Easy to identify with the era and for me the librarian. Albert was a winner with “I surely loved libraries…..They’re magical places. Time machines,really.” Same could be said for Miller’s ability to put the reader into a time capsule and

NO MAN IS AN ISLAND – John Donne, “Meditation XV11” Themes of loneliness and isolation dominate much of literature. Carson McCullers’ “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” and Joseph Conrad’s “Lord Jim” are two examples that come to mind, but the list is len