Motherhood: Specific, Essential, Irreplaceable
Certain subjects bring probing insights that defy partisanship or cultural divides. One such subject is motherhood. Even for the thorough-going progressive, the […]
Musing on the Virtuous Life
It was great fun to appear on Pat Oedy-Murray’s “The Virtuous Life” radio program on the Annunciation Radio Network out of the […]
The Joys of the Impractical and the Rube Goldberg Machine
The Rube Goldberg Machine delights. Named after the Reuben Lucius “Rube” Goldberg, a twentieth-century cartoonist, the machines are imaginative chain reaction devices […]
George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” and the Beautifully Forgettable Mother
Middlemarch is an interwoven narrative of many lives, intertwining and developing over decades. George Eliot’s perhaps best-known work, the book offers much […]
“The Trolley Car Family” for a Fun Summer Read
Eleanor Clymer’s “The Trolley Car Family” offers a light-hearted, endearing story that fits well with summer vacation. The story follows the Parker […]
Hope in Action or No Hope At All
“Hope” is the thing with feathers – That perches in the soul – And sings the tune without the words – And […]
Unlike Anything Else: John D. Fitzgerald’s “The Great Brain”
Visiting Utah reveals that it is a place unlike any other. Fittingly, one of Utah’s best-loved authors wrote a series of children’s […]
Suffering Does Not Discriminate
Norman Cousins’ Anatomy of an Illness is a book as relevant today as it was upon publication in 1972. Cousins has a […]
No Substitute for Real Children
Few are the people who outright state that they dislike children. There are misanthropes willing to despise what they once were, but […]
Extravagance: an Essential Ingredient for Life
Betty Smith includes many memorable details of the life Francie Nolan growing up in poverty and instability in “A Tree Grows in […]