If you think today’s headlines are bad, you’re right. We’re dogged by the apparent philosophy of those in my lifelong profession: bad news is good news, and good news is no news at all. Just consider a few of the all-too-real headlines in my morning email on April Fool’s Day: World Central Kitchen suspends aid …
Continue reading Turning down the news and looking elsewhere
Consider the plight of my friend, let's call her Barbara. A widow, a vivacious, smart and active woman "of a certain age," she found love again more than a decade ago with a widower. After a long time of dating, she moved in with him. Let's call him X. They seemed perfect for each other, …
Continue reading Love in the golden years: cohabitors need protection
How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day and seemingly reasonable people turn out to be crazy Uncle Harry. McRaney shares what he has …
Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is a short, dense and intense meditation on what it means to be an outsider and a survivor. The first-person narrator speaks directly to the reader spinning the tale of how, as a child, her family had taught her to subdue her own wants and silence her own voice …
Continue reading Books: a fictional interlude in our non-fictional life
The October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel was barbaric, gut-wrenching and a blatant violation of international law. For many, especially those whose extended families have been caught up in the terror, the attack was also deeply personal. At least 1200 Israelis were killed, many of them raped and dismembered. The much-vaunted Israeli intelligence apparatus …
Continue reading Israel’s response to Hamas: when does enough become too much?
I don't mean to be disrespectful, but I have some questions in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children. If they are, indeed, children, shouldn't keeping them in freezers at some -230F or colder be a barbarous form of child abuse? Shouldn't the parents be prosecuted? Who else along …
Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane is as effective a thriller as his previous books, once again taking a deep dive into the social and political environment in South Boston, this time in the lead-up to the 1974 school busing crisis. That event was raw, for both Blacks and Whites, but it's just the backdrop for …
Continue reading Frigid weather, fiction to warm your spirits
The City of Newton's shameful, illegal, and history-making 11-day teachers strike is over. Finally, Newton’s 12,000 school kids are back in class, where they belong. Those of us who have lived in Newton for a long time are heartbroken that the dispute came down to that illegal action. The turbulence and incivility, the willingness to …
Continue reading Cry the beloved city! Reflections on the Newton teachers strike
Master, Slave, Husband, Wife: an epic journey from slavery to freedom by Ilyon Woo is the story of Ellen Craft, a light-skinned enslaved woman and skilled seamstress, and her husband William, also enslaved and a skilled cabinet maker, and their 1848 flight from their masters in Macon, Georgia to Philadelphia, Boston, Canada and England. Ellen …
Continue reading During frigid temps, some non-fiction books to warm you
Do we really need to arm the Statue of Liberty? It’s no secret that there is an immigration crisis in this country. Since Biden became President, more than three million migrants have crossed the border, and an estimated 1.7 million more have snuck in or overstayed their visas. The influx is now a problem for …
Marjorie Arons-Barron 