I confess, much as I’m drawn to a bottle of wine with a provocative label, I’m also attracted to a book with high-profile accolades. So, when I was handed a […]
Saving Bobby
On average, 115 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.[1] That is one American every 12.5 minutes, a staggering statistic. As a public health professional with over a decade experience […]
The Middle of Things: Essays
In the tradition of classic essayists from Virginia Woolf to Annie Dillard, Meghan Florian combines personal narrative with careful analysis, taking the ordinary material of undramatic daily life and distilling […]
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
One of the most useful terms I’ve learned, passed on to me by Kari Barclay, is “Kingsplaining.” It’s a verb that describes the process by which people in power use […]
Searching for Sunday
In the 70’s, we boomers raged and sneered about the Generation Gap. Those we now call ‘the greatest generation’ appeared to us youngsters as blind to the present and busy […]
Lessons in Belonging
I didn’t expect to like this book. I started it only because the author is a fellow board member at RCWMS and reading it seemed like the congenial thing to […]
God’s Hotel
I wish God’s Hotel were a book with pictures. No matter how precise Victoria Sweet’s descriptions, the world her words conjure is difficult to imagine. A hospital that looks more like a […]
On Immunity: An Inoculation
It seems like every time I turn around these days I run into another story about vaccination. To me the message seems clear: everyone without a contraindicating medical issue should […]
The New Jim Crow
Last fall, a small group of women at RCWMS read The New Jim Crow together over several weeks. This was after the shooting of Michael Brown, before decisions by grand juries not […]
The Faraway Nearby
I just finished Rebecca Solnit’s luminous new book, The Faraway Nearby. It is so brimming with breathtaking passages that I am tempted to just line up quotations so that you can […]
Ann Patchett
I first encountered Ann Patchett when my book club chose her third novel, The Magician’s Assistant, for our monthly conversation. This quirky novel about Sabine, the widowed assistant to her magician […]
The Sapphires
“It’s 1968 and four young, talented Australian Aboriginal girls learn about love, friendship and war when their all girl group The Sapphires entertain the US troops in Vietnam.” (IMDB) The Sapphires, […]