Sitting at Fenway Park last week got me to thinking about the mystique of what used to be American’s #1 pastime. The beloved image is of a warm summer night, a gentle breeze blowing the American flag in the direction of home runs. The sport creates a timeless idyll in which , at any moment, …
Author: aronsbarron
Memorial Day remembrances of fathers at war
The War Diaries of Simon Robert Gordon by Constance Gordon Kean is a daughter’s loving tribute to her father’s and mother’s 1940’s romance against the backdrop of a world war. Her father, a sergeant stationed for three years in the Middle East, kept a daily journal, sharing life behind the front lines supporting combat troops …
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A heart-warming novel set in Ireland
Time of the Child by Niall Williams returns us to the setting for his last novel, This is Happiness. We’re deposited back in the rural Irish village of Faha, where the men work hard and douse end-of-workday frustrations at the local bars while their long-suffering wives tend to domestic chores and ride herd on multiple …
Learning about ourselves from our families’ pasts
To the Midnight Sun: A Story of Exile and Return by Stephen Saletan is another search for one’s own identity by researching a close relative, in this case, Saletan’s Russian-born grandmother, Eda Grigorievna Bamuner. As a child in suburban New York, Saletan spent weekends together and enjoyed a special relationship with her. From the elderly …
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Decoding the Odyssey: a fresh look at an old saga
Emily Wilson's 2017 translation of The Odyssey was a very different read for me. I had read a couple of versions of The Odyssey in my younger life. But her fresh translation of Homer came highly recommended, and I decided to give it a try. The destination was the same, but the journey was quite different. …
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Spring and a growing handful of stand-ups bring hope
The azaleas, daffodils and hyacinths are blooming; Passover and Easter celebrate rebirth. Spring blooms, however, are evanescent. We look for more lasting signs of hope, especially in the chaotic political world around us. Dare we see this as such a sign? Harvard University has straightened its institutional backbone and is standing up to Donald Trump. …
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Two novels to take you elsewhere
Safekeep, a debut novel by Yael van der Wouden, won the 2024 Booker Prize, and the award was well deserved. Set in the Netherlands in 1961, it focuses on Isabel, the only one of three siblings caring for the big old house in which she grew up. Brother Hendrick has moved on to a gay …
Don’t let end-of-life options bill die again
On April 2, the Massachusetts legislature heard testimony on a bill giving suffering people in the last six months of their lives the legal option of self-administered, doctor-prescribed medicine for a more gentle passing. The fight for this right has been going on for more than a decade on Beacon Hill. It's well past time …
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March Madness and Maura Healey’s full-court press
For Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, her high spirits and steely dedication are a year-round demeanor. The former co-captain of Harvard University's women's basketball team and a starter on a professional team in Austria applies the competitive drive and shrewd strategic sense to everything she does in government. We saw those qualities when, as Attorney General, …
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Authoritarianism versus liberalism: a political memoir
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History by Lea Ypi is the remarkable memoir of an Albanian girl, told in the first person starting when she was just seven years old. Ypi sees the world and her homeland through the perspective of her very complicated family. Her grandmother, Nini, who lives with them, …
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Marjorie Arons-Barron 