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Recent Reads – April

It’s been an eclectic month of reading. I want to start with Sonnez Les Matines, a one-act verse play by Jane Clark Scharl just published by Wiseblood Books. On Mardi Gras night in 16th-century Paris, three young friends who are soon to be giants–protestant reformer John Calvin, Jesuit founder St. Ignatius of Loyola, and ribaldContinue reading “Recent Reads – April”

Recent Reads – March

After all those long reads, it was time to plump up my list of books with some good novellas. I waited a long time for Claire Keegan’s Foster to come in at the library, but it was well worth it. A young Irish girl is sent to live with a childless couple for the summer,Continue reading “Recent Reads – March”

Recent Reads – February

With apologies to Cynthia Ozick, I have a confession to make. A few weekends ago, I picked up a copy of Foreign Bodies–Ozick’s 2010 retelling of The Ambassadors by Henry James–at Milwaukee’s Downtown Books. The blurb on the back looked great: at the behest of her overbearing brother, a divorced schoolteacher travels to Paris toContinue reading “Recent Reads – February”

Recent Reads – January

In 2022, I gave myself credit for finishing 62 books. I used a few indulgences to arrive at this number: I counted reading an issue of Ploughshares cover to cover, along with the unpublished manuscript I read for my beta reader (more on that delightful exchange later). I also counted shorter things that are completeContinue reading “Recent Reads – January”

Coffee Pot

The coffee maker has grown sluggish in middle age. I turn it on first thing in the morning; it responds willingly at first, perking away, but then, with a sigh, it slows down, and the light will go off, a few ounces brewed and the rest of the water languishing in the receptacle. I don’tContinue reading “Coffee Pot”

Why Proust?

My most recent dive into In Search of Lost Time began in 2020, when my daughter was reading Swann’s Way for a college class. I picked up her book and started enthusing about the moment when the narrator, world-weary and sad, traces his first taste of the madeleine dipped in lime blossom tea to hisContinue reading “Why Proust?”