Falling Asleep in the Boston Public Library

The snoring was loud enough to turn heads. On the otherwise quiet second floor of the Boston Public Library, a man sat with his head titled backward, his arms outstretched, his mouth wide open. I peered at him over the cover of Joan Didion’s “Democracy” and wondered what had made him so tired.
Was it that [...]

Messages and Memories Found, Preserved in Books

Just some of what I found in the books on my bookshelves.
Last week I was flipping through my mom’s old cookbook. It’s a cookbook written by Ellie Deaner, who Mom and I used to take cooking classes from when I was a child. The red cover is torn from the spiral binding of the [...]

Books That Remind Us of Childhood, How Much We’ve Grown

On my morning commute to work earlier this week, I caught the beginning of a segment on National Public Radio (NPR) about “everyone’s favorite ‘Little Women’ character,” Jo. The second oldest of the four children, Jo aspires to be a writer and is the kind of woman who some say Louisa May Alcott wanted [...]