Could I Become a Stoic?

 

Monday the sun shone in Northport.

Long ago, back in the Middle Ages of my life—my early Middle Ages, that is—in the university office where I worked for a while there was a faculty member whose positive attitude and relentless good cheer bordered on mania. Over time I came to appreciate Jack's irrepressible good humor but could not buy into his oft-proclaimed belief that “There are no problems! Only opportunities!” 

 

Now, however, in early old age, I find myself, maybe, being won over to that way of thinking. 

Easier to feel hopeful when the sun is shining --

My change of mind and heart probably began before the death of my husband, although that enormous loss certainly made everything else I might have named a “problem” earlier in life seem trivial by comparison. As Jamie Raskin wrote of the death of his son by suicide at age 25, what was there to fear, now that the worst had already happened? And yet, even before that had come a cascade of crises, each to be met with calm and resolve, because no situation is helped by panic. Driving the Artist to the ER or calling for an ambulance, waiting out a surgery, living through days when he was “unresponsive” (hospital staff avoided using the word coma, until I finally asked if that’s what it was) were all situations that called on me to respond with something other than screaming hysteria. I had no choice but to rise to each difficult occasion and deal with it as it was. I could hardly welcome those situations as “opportunities,” and even now it’s a stretch to think of them that way, but they definitely demanded that I stretch in other ways. 

 

—But that might not have been the start, either, because over previous years I had gradually managed to leave behind, for the most part, my younger, reactive, self-dramatizing, often self-pitying and resentful self. Having a child and going back to work and navigating those paths simultaneously demanded that I deal with the world as a grownup, although growing up was for me, as it is for most of us (I think), a lifetime process. I should say it is, because I hope to keep growing as long as I live.

 

Growth. Rarely steady. Gradual but also subject to plateaus, to backslidings, to rushes ahead and then stalls. Sometimes to simple determined and dogged trudging forward.

On Wednesday, winter came back.

Living alone (with a dog, thank heaven!) has given me a fair share of opportunities for growth. Losing my billfold on a cross-country trip (which meant traveling without driver’s license and credit card); flat tire in Kansas on another trek; coming home to a failed septic pump that had to be replaced; having the farmhouse furnace give up the ghost (fortunately, that happened in the spring and not in the dead of winter)—all were unwelcome and unchosen situations that, nevertheless, had to met head-on. 

Scary time: when my puppy had a fever!

Another piece of the adult puzzle I had discovered back in the late 1980s was that taking action was empowering, all by itself, regardless of results. Does that sound obvious? The thing is, I didn’t have to take monumental action or even, all the time, action having anything to do with the unwanted situation. Sometimes it was as simple as pulling my head out from underneath the covers and sweeping dust bunnies out from underneath the bed. Looking back on my days of frenetic housekeeping in the face of situations beyond my control, I see that I was proving to myself that I was not helpless. I might have been only a pawn in their game, but in my own game I was the queen!

 

In the course of the past year, my fourth as a widow, more or less adjusted to that inescapable reality, I was helped not only by supportive friends and family and the companionship of my dog but also by the business I started back in 1993, little foreseeing then how vital it would be to my future life. My bookshop provides me with social life, morale support (and that is not a typo: I insist on morale, rather than moral for the real meaning of the phrase), and with daily literary and intellectual and, yes, casual, friendly conversations, as well as not only the excuse but the necessity of ordering new books on a regular basis.

 

I haven’t changed the subject.

 

Last year I ordered a book by Mel Robbins, Let Them, because I had gotten so much out of her various short video clips that I wanted to share her ideas with others. 

While reorganizing my spices at home on Tuesday this week (a dismal, rainy day), I listened to a conversation between Robbins and the “Daily Stoic” podcaster, Ryan Holiday, intrigued to hear him compare what Robbins calls her “Let Them theory” to stoicism, as both are about accepting what you cannot change. (Sounds like AA, doesn’t it?) Robbins takes pains to assure readers and listeners and viewers that she is not counseling the acceptance of disrespect or abuse. You don’t have to stay in a job forever with a disrespectful boss (although you might have to stay until you find something else), and you don’t have to stay in an abusive relationship with someone who puts no value on you, only on what he can get out of you. (Change pronouns as necessary for different situations.) What you are accepting is reality, the fact that you cannot change anyone but yourself, and that no one else is going to change because you would like them better a different way. 

 

First you do the “Let Them” step, and then, crucially, comes the “Let Me” step, where you decide what you will do in response to someone else's behavior that you don't like. It won’t be attempting to change that other person. You’ve already realized you have no power to do that. What you have power over is your response. In this conversation with Ryan Holiday, Robbins says you don’t even have to buy her book! She'll tell you what’s in it! What I have written here is my nutshell version.

The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, the sixteenth emperor of Rome, who lived from 121 to 180 BCE, has been having a massive resurgence in popularity in 21^st-century America, and it’s not hard to understand the reasons for that. The long, gradual “fall” of the Roman Empire was already underway when the Stoic emperor (adopted, not born, into a family of aristocrats) came to power. War and conflict, the Antonine Plague and famine were some of the hardships in Rome during the 16th emperor's reign. He knew some tough times and had advice for getting through them.

 

As an experiment, I open the Meditations at random, and there on page 75 is a pithy bit of advice: 

 

Don’t align your thinking with that of a man who’s dishonoring you. Don’t think as he wants you to think, but see things as they truly are.

 

I close the book and open it once more, again at random: 

 

Perfection of character lies in this: to live each day as though it were your last, without turmoil, without listlessness, and without pretense. 

 

I can’t say I have ever studied Marcus Aurelius, and it’s been years since I read Epictetus, but clearly the times are nudging me in the direction of the Stoics, and so this week, in that spirit, and because each day could be my last, I have been focusing on telling people clearly how important they are to me, in ways large and small. As one of Northport’s beloved elders, Reverend Marshall Collins, told me once while we were still next-door business neighbors, “I’m giving you flowers while you’re alive.” (A good friend of his had recently died, and he was reflecting on all the flowers at the funeral.) Too often we think that surely people already know that we value them, but even our closest friends and family, secure in our love for them, get a boost from hearing appreciation put into words. I told our postmaster in Northport how much I love the post office and gave her a big hug! “Spread the word! These are strange times!” she urged, and I told her I do sing the praises of the USPS, often.

 

A last word today in closing: “Let Them” does not have to mean disengaging from politics. Don't waste your time and mental energy on conversations and activities that make you feel powerless, in politics or anywhere else, but please take a stand for kindness and justice and law (the real kind of law, with features like due process!), if you can find it within yourself to do so (here are some suggestions from Robert Reich), because—just as Rome was not built in a day, neither did it fall in a day.

 

Don’t act as if you were going to live for ten thousand years. Fate is hanging over your head. While you live—while you can—be a good man.

 

Man or woman, be a good person--while you can!

Gift from and memento of that good man,
Rev. Marshall Collins - 
Today's post is dedicated to him.

Reading, Talking, and Islands of Light

Sunny Juliet’s biggest winter thrill may be finding deer bones left behind by coyotes, but when she has enjoyed one for a day or two and her momma surreptitiously bags it and spirits it away, she makes do with any old bone, because however marrow- and flesh-free the bone, it has plenty of chewing left in it. 

Sunny! Her very name speaks light.

Reading for distraction

 

A good friend told me she is currently reading a book of ecclesiastical history by a 4^th-century scholar! Feeling like an incredible lightweight, I admitted to her that I had laid aside The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, which I was inspired to read after reading the novel Perspective(s) by Laurent Binet, to re-read, for the -nth time, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a book I know practically by heart. I told her I was “distracting myself from real-life lies and murder.” She replied with a confession of her own—that over the past two weeks she has re-read, for the fifth or sixth time each, six of the seven Harry Potter books! “Distractions,” she noted, “are intellectual life savers.” That made me feel better. 

 

 

Serious reading

 

Besides casual bedtime reading of The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (quite the hothead, as well as a marvelously gifted artist and craftsman), I've gotten started this week on a couple of other serious and more contemporary books—books of our own time, that is—one of those, Jamie Raskin’s Unthinkable: Trauma, Truth, and the Trials of American Democracy. Here is the stunning opening paragraph in the preface to Raskin’s book:

 

In the week between December 31, 2020, and January 6, 2021, my family suffered two impossible traumas: the shattering death by suicide of my beloved twenty-five-year-old son, Tommy, and the violent mob insurrection at the U.S. Capitol that left several people dead, more than 140 Capitol and Metropolitan Police officers wounded and injured, hundreds of people (including several in our family) fleeing for their lives, and the nation shaken to its core. Although Tommy’s death and the January 6 insurrection were cosmically distinct and independent events, they were thoroughly intertwined in my experience and my psyche. I will probably spend the rest of my life trying to disentangle and understand them to restore coherence to the world they ravaged. 

 

January 6, 2021, was Rep. Raskin’s first day back in the House following the death of his son only a week before. Probably still in shock, he did not fear for his life while traveling to the Rayburn Building, despite threatening crowds and gestures from people in those crowds. The important procedure of the day was counting and certifying votes from all 50 states to insure the peaceful transfer of power, a procedure that had never in our nation’s history been sidetracked or prevented from occurring, and the Congressman was going to do the job he had sworn an oath to do. 

 

When the mob breached the Capitol and members of Congress had to leave their Chamber for safety, Raskin says he felt “curiosity, anger, resolve,” but no fear, because for him the worst had already happened. His son had died. Reliving January 6 in the present tense, he continues,

 

But I am still in the land of the living, and Tommy is with me somehow every step of the way. He is occupying my heart and filling my chest with oxygen. He is showing me the way to some kind of safety.

 

My beautiful son is giving me courage as we flee the U.S. Capitol Building for our lives.

 

My trauma, my wound, has now become my shield of defense and my path of escape, and all I can think of is my son propelling me forward to fight. 

 

 

Giving up on a book

 

I got this far in a draft on Friday and returned that night to Cellini but finally set him aside in disgust, 159 pages in, heartily sick of the man. I don’t even want to quote him but will only say that after so many pages of boasting and a temper that erupted time after time into violence, even murder, it was his behavior at an overnight lodging place that revealed the man’s essential pettiness. Greatly talented, obviously, but thin-skinned, vindictive and petty in the extreme. 

 

Here's the incident: Cellini and a friend are traveling and stop at an inn to stay overnight. The innkeeper wants payment for the room in advance rather than in the morning, and Cellini is incensed. He finally pays and is pleased to find a clean, spacious room with new beds and immaculate linens, but his sense of outrage persists. He contemplates killing the innkeeper, as one possibility. He considers slaughtering the innkeeper’s horses. At last he hits on the expedient of destroying the beds and linens—and is inordinately pleased with himself as he continues on his way! A mean, cowardly, and completely inexcusable “revenge” for something that was not even unreasonable in the first place—being asked to pay for a room before occupying it! 

No, I do not want to spend any more time with this horrid, vile little man! I will keep the book in my home library only because it was, as a used book with illustrations by Dali, one of the first gifts I ever gave the Artist in my own life, and I keep it for the inscription, not for the content. I only hope my Artist never read it and only looked at the Dali art.

On second thought, maybe I will tear out and keep only the inscription page and ditch the book. What do you think?

 

 

Avoiding difficult subjects

 

The news this past week has been heartbreaking, enraging, and terrifying. As I see it, nothing less than the soul of our country is at stake, and yet there are people who think we should remain silent on politics when we disagree in order to keep family and community “peace.” Why, they ask, do we have to let one subject, i.e., politics, completely overtake our lives and relationships? Why can’t we simply talk about other things and avoid politics?

 

From where I stand, this means avoiding a subject that is on my mind every single day. It wasn’t always so, and my thoughts still free-range over a vast number of subjects, but right there in the forefront, these days, is the struggle for my country’s soul.

 

Thinking about not-talking-about-it, here are a couple historical scenes I try to imagine. 

 

Picture family members or friends during the period of the American Revolution. Now imagine them split between those supporting the Declaration of Independence and those remaining loyal to the King of England and then trying to avoid politics in order to enjoy one another’s company and conversation. Can you see that working?

 

Or think of Americans with intertwined lives but opposing politics during the Civil War, a family or community riven by that conflict. Imagine a supporter of the Union, an abolitionist, asked to “avoid politics” in order to maintain a cordial, loving, ongoing daily relationship with a member of the Confederacy, perhaps even a slaveholder.

 

Imagine someone in either of these situations, in either of these time periods, saying something like, “Can’t we just have a nice Thanksgiving dinner and talk about other things?” People whose lives have not—yet!—been touched personally will think my examples are far-fetched and exaggerated, but I don't think so.

 

Pretend there’s no elephant standing between us in the living room? Pretend that your vision of the future (or a future you are unwittingly helping to create) is not my vision of earthly hell? Pretend that your political allies are not trying to wipe me and mine off the face of the earth?

 

Heartbreak. Rage. Fear. Stuff all that down and pretend it isn't there? How on earth?

 

Taking breaks

Happy news: NJ's is open again.

Since last fall, I have been in a different kind of discussion, an ongoing conversation that is for me an island of sunlight in this dark, violent winter of our national discontent. It is a conversation without limits, meandering from the weather and what each of us had for dinner to literature, through history, and beyond. We share stories from our childhoods and younger years, talk of our families and other people we have known who were important to us. We speak of death and grief. No topic is too trivial or too grand or too puzzling or too silly. And yet we touch on politics and current (outrageous) events infrequently and usually only briefly.

 

There are two reasons why politics is not a larger part of this ongoing conversation. The first reason is that we don’t need to argue about it. We are in agreement. The second is that we don’t need to let that dark cloud come between us and happiness. When you have an island of light in your life, the last thing you want to do is trigger a power outage. 

 

This is not avoidance. It’s taking a break, it’s recharging, it’s drawing and giving strength. See the difference?

A welcome morning sunrise

A Year of Reading: Books Read 2025

Before I had started reading

A year ago this month, in January of 2025, I began writing a line or two or three of description for each book read, but that only lasted a month, and beginning in February I went back to the more bare-bones author, title (fiction/nonfiction, year) format. Some of these were re-readings, and you will see occasional binges. Many of the books in this list I discussed on blog posts in 2025, and you can use the search bar at the top of the blog to find those posts where they exist. Want to know more? A couple books on the list I might not remember at all, but you can ask! Here then are the books I read over the last twelve months.

View from bank to harbor on a December morning

1. Thomas, Kai. In the Upper Country (fiction, 2023). Brilliant novel of refugees from American slavery who joined forces over generations with indigenous peoples of the U.S. and Canada in a quest for freedom. Tales within tales. A tour de force. 

2. Reade, Charles. The Cloister and the Hearth: A Tale of the Middle Ages (fiction, 1861). Picaresque historical novel set in the late 1400s, with every element a reader could ever desire. Adventure, love, humor, philosophy, description, atmosphere, etc.

3. Estes, Eleanor. The Moffats (juvenile fiction, 1941). Every now and then I re-read the always charming books about the Moffat and Pye families, enjoying Louis Slobodkin’s simple illustrations as much as the stories I first discovered in grade school. For me, they never grow old 

4. Lane, Eric & Michael Oreskes. The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved Our Country and Why It Can Again (nonfiction, 2007). The authors stress that many compromises were necessary for the Constitution to come into being in the first place and that its structure of checks and balances were designed to prevent despotism. Recent and current winner-take-all strategies from the White House, in Congress, and in a loaded Court system have all been partisan attempts in recent decades to short-circuit what the authors of this book call our Constitutional Conscience. Full text of the United States Constitution included as an appendix. 

5. Godden, Rumer. A Time to Dance, No Time to Weep (nonfiction, 1987). The second book of memoir from this prolific author (she wrote and had published over 60 books, both fiction and nonfiction) tells of her childhood and young womanhood, and motherhood, covering years in India, England, and Kashmir. 

6. Barr, Nevada. Firestorm (fiction, 1996). Although the firestorm in this novel was confined to wilderness and did not touch urban areas, descriptions of the blaze and its aftermath were difficult to read as fires raged in the L.A. area this January. 

7. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Committed: A Love Story (nonfiction, 2010). Memoir plus explorations of the history of marriage, along with customs in a couple of other countries the author and her then-future husband visited.

8. Wang, Qian Julie. Beautiful Country (nonfiction, 2021). Another memoir, this one from a young woman who came to the U.S. from China with her mother to join her father who had come before. 

9. Orcutt, William Dana. From My Library Walls: A Kaleidoscope of Memories (nonfiction, 1945). Where did he find room for bookshelves with all the portraits and framed letters he had hanging on his library walls?

10. Lenski, Lois. Houseboat Girl (fiction – juv., 1957). Simple story and simple illustrations tell of a vanished way of American life. (Now, if only I could find my copy of  Phyllis Crawford’s Hello, the Boat!)

11. Gilbert, Elizabeth. Signature of All Things (fiction, 2013). Enormous canvas brilliantly executed.

12. Smith, Alexander McCall. The Enigma of Garlic (fiction, 2022). Comforting, as his books generally are.

13. Hamilton, Mary Mann. Trials of the Earth (nonfiction, 1992/2017). One woman’s life, working and raising a family in Arkansas and the Mississippi Delta in the late 1800s.

14. Hughes, Sian. Pearl (fiction, 2024). A small book but not slight, this novel gains substance as it goes along.

15. Harrison, Jim. Dalva (fiction, 1988)

16. Ahmed, Samira. This Book Won’t Burn (fiction, 2024)

17. Houston, James. Ghost Fox (fiction, 1977)

18. Eig, Jonathan. King: A Life (nonfiction, 2024)

19. Kaur, Valarie. See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (nonfiction, 2020)

20. Stander, Aaron. Smoke and Mirrors (fiction, 2024)

21. Maxwell, William. The Chateau (fiction, 1961)

22. Carter, Jimmy. Keeping Faith (nonfiction, 1982)

23. Brooks, Geraldine. Memorial Days (nonfiction, 2024)

24. Braun, Lilian Jackson. The Cat Who Went Up the Creek (fiction, 2002)

25. Benedict, Marie & Victoria Christopher Murray. The Personal Librarian (historical fiction, 2021)

26. Wilkerson, Charmaine. Black Cake (fiction, 2022)

27. Christie, Agatha. The Clocks (fiction, 1964)

28. Egan, Timothy. Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis (nonfiction, 2012).

29. Stark-Nemon, Barbara. Hard Cider (fiction, 2018)

30. Anderson, Peter. Heading Home: Field Notes (nonfiction, 2017).

31. Hesse, Hermann. Steppenwolf (fiction, 1927)

32. Base, Ron. The Dame with the Sanibel Sunset Detective (fiction, 2017).

33. Base, Ron. The Two Sanibel Sunset Detectives (fiction, 2013)

34. Base, Ron. The Hound of the Sanibel Sunset Detective (fiction, 2014)

35. Base, Ron. The Four Wives of the Sanibel Sunset Detective (fiction, 2015).

36. Zimmerman, Marilyn. In Defense of Good Women (fiction, 2025, ARC)

37. Base, Ron. The Sanibel Sunset Detective Goes to London (fiction, 2016)

38. Ardizzone, Heidi. An Illuminated Life: Belle da Costa Greene’s Journey from Prejudice to Privilege (nonfiction, 2007)

39. Farjeon, J. Jefferson. Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story (fiction, 1937)

40. Reich, Robert B. Aftershock (nonfiction, 2010).

41. Cook, Olive. Breckland (nonfiction, 1956)

42. Williams, Niall. This Is Happiness (fiction, 2019)

43. Smith, Ali. There but for the (fiction, 2011)

44. Perkins, Lynne Rae. At Home in a Faraway Place (fiction, juv., 2025)

45. Hudson, Marjorie. Indigo Field (fiction, 2023)

46. Dobyns, Jay. No Angel: My Harrowing Undercover Journey to the Inner Circle of the Hells Angels (nonfiction, 2009)

47. Brooks, Robert R. R. A Tumult of Years (nonfiction, 1980)

48. Dutourd, Jean. Pluche, or the Love of Art (fiction, 1970)

49. Sweet, Melissa. Some Writer! The Story of E.B. White (nonfiction, 2016)

50. Sherratt, Yvonne. Hitler’s Philosophers (nonfiction, 2013)

51. Bennett, Arnold. Riceyman Steps (fiction, 1923)

52. Bennett, Arnold. The Card (fiction, 1911)

53. Bennett, Arnold. Imperial Palace (fiction, 1930)

54. Davies, Robertson. What’s Bred in the Bone (fiction, 1985) 

55. Parini, Jay. Benjamin’s Crossing (fiction, 1997)

56. Benjamin, Walter. Berlin Childhood around 1900 (nonfiction, 2006 Am. ed.)

57. Behrman, S.N. Duveen (nonfiction, 1952)

58. Levi, Lia; trans. Antony Shugaar. The Jewish Husband (fiction, 2009)

59. Milne, Christopher. The Path Through the Trees (nonfiction, 1979)

60. Base, Ron. The Sanibel Sunset Detective Returns (fiction, 2011)

61. Tomkins, Calvin. Living Well is the Best Revenge (nonfiction, 1971)

62. Cambridge, Colleen. Mastering the Art of French Murder (fiction, 2023)

63. Atkinson, Kate. Behind the Scenes at the Museum (fiction, 2020)

64. Cambridge, Colleen. A Murder Most French (fiction, 2024)

65. Trollope, Fanny. Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832)

66. McMurtry, Larry. The Last Kind Words Saloon (fiction, 2014)

67. Ofaire, Cilette, trans. Beren Van Slyke. The San Luca (nonfiction, 1935)

68. Gerber, Dan. A Voice from the River (fiction, 2005)

69. Clarke, Stephen. A Year in the Merde (fiction, 2004)

70. Stimson, James A. King Noanett: A Story of Old Virginia and the Massachusetts Bay (fiction, 1896)

71. Mulvahill, Karen. The Lost Woman (fiction, 2025).

72. Trueblood, Valerie. Criminals: Love Stories (fiction, 2016)

73. Daudet, Alphonse. Lettres de mon moulin (nonfiction, 1869)

74. Seth, Vikram. The Golden Gate (fiction/sonnets, 1986)

75. Bennett, Leslie K. Peaks & Valleys (fiction, 2024).

76. McMurtry, Larry. Lonesome Dove (fiction, 1985)

77. Everett, Percival. James (fiction, 2024)

78. Buck, Pearl S. My Several Worlds: A Personal Record (nonfiction, 1954)

79. Mason, Miriam E. Caroline and Her Kettle Named Maud (fiction, juv, 1965)

80. Bayles, David & Ted Orland. Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking (nonfiction, 2001)

81. Swanson, Julie A. North of Tomboy (fiction, 2025)

82. Bell, J.H. The Dish Boat (fiction, 1943)

83. Butterworth, Oliver. The Enormous Egg (fiction – juv., 1956)

84. Kipling, Rudyard. The Second Jungle Book (fiction, 1895)

85. Zuravleff, Mary Kay. American Ending (fiction, 2023)

86. Walker, Martin. The Templars’ Last Secret (fiction, 2017)

87. McNeer, May. Give Me Freedom (nonfiction – juv., 1964)

88. Oakley, Mary Ann B. Elizabeth Cady Stanton (nonfiction, 1972)

89. Clark, Jennifer. Kissing the World Goodbye (nonfiction, 2022)

90. Eggers, Dave. Zeitoun (nonfiction, 2009)

91. Lerner, Betsy. The Forest for the Trees: An Editor’s Advice to Writers (nonfiction, 2000)

92. Lopez, Barry. About This Life: Journeys on the Threshold of Memory (nonfiction, 1998)

93. Garner, Bryan A. & David Foster Wallace. Quack This Way (nonfiction, 2013)

94. Brooks, David. The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (nonfiction, 2019)

95. Lawrence, D.H. Etruscan Places (nonfiction, 1932)

96. Anderson, Joan. A Year by the Sea (nonfiction, 1999)

97. Fuentes, Robert “Carlos.” The Vacation: A Teenage Migrant Farmworker’s Experience Picking Cherries in Michigan (nonfiction, 2025)

98. Mulherin, Timothy. This Magnetic North: Candid Conversations on a Changing Northern Michigan (nonfiction, 2025)

99. Dykeman, Wilma. The French Broad (nonfiction, from “Rivers of America” series, (1955)

100. Erdrich, Louise. The Bingo Palace (fiction, 1993)

101. Shingarev, A.I. The Shingarev Diary (nonfiction, 1978)

102. Youngquist, Mark D. My Joy Journey with Amy (nonfiction, 2025)

103. Terkel, Studs. Hope Dies Last (nonfiction, 2003)

104. Mosley, Walter. Farewell, Amethystine (fiction, 2024)

105. Myette, Jack. Prison: The Inside Story—Transforming Lives as an Officer and Educator (nonfiction, 2025)

106. Kemelman, Harry. Tuesday the Rabbi Saw Red (fiction, 1973)

107. Ibid. Wednesday the Rabbi Got Wet (fiction, 1976)

108. Ibid. Thursday the Rabbi Walked Out (fiction, 1978)

109. Ibid. Someday the Rabbi Will Leave (fiction, 1985)

110. Wilkerson, Charmaine. Good Dirt (fiction, 2025)

111. Jacobs, A.J. Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection (nonfiction, 2012)

112. Byfield, Barbara Ninde. A Parcel of Their Fortunes (fiction, 1979).

113. Tyler, Anne. Clock Dance (fiction, 2018)

114. Williams, Niall. The Year of the Child (fiction, 2024)

115. Forbes, Kathryn. Mama’s Bank Account (1943)

116. Mosley, Walter. Little Green (fiction, 2013)

117. Camus, Albert, trans. Matthew Ward. The Stranger (fiction, this edition 1993)

118. McHugh, Ernestine. Love and Honor in the Himalayas: Coming to Know Another Culture (nonfiction, 2001)

119. Dahl, Roald. Boy (nonfiction, 1984)

120. Williams, Niall. History of the Rain (fiction, 

121. Whybrow, Helen. The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life (nonfiction, 2025)

122. Backman, Fredrick. Britt-Marie Was Here (fiction, 2016)

123. Harris, Kai. What the Fireflies Knew (fiction, 2022)

124. White, E.B., ed. Martha White. E.B. White on Dogs (nonfiction, 2013)

125. Styron, William. Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness (nonfiction, 1990)

126. Camus, Henri. Le premier homme (fiction, 1994)

127. Waganese, Richard. Medicine Walk (fiction, (fiction, 2016)

128. Paul, Elliot. The Last Time I Saw Paris (nonfiction, 1942)

129. Lanham, J. Drew. The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature (nonfiction, 2016)

130. Quinn, Spencer. Dog On It (fiction, 2009)

131. Quinn, Spencer. Thereby Hangs a Tail (fiction, 2010

132. Quinn, Spencer. To Fetch a Thief (fiction, 2010)

133. Goddard, Todd. Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life (nonfiction, 2025)

134. Walsh, Jenni L. Sonora (fiction, 2025)

135. Goldstein, Rebecca. Incompleteness : The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel (nonfiction, 2005)

136. Collins, Chuck & Mary Wright. The Moral Measure of the Economy (nonfiction, 2007).

137. Steves, Rick. On the Hippie Trail: Instanbul to Kathmandu and the Making of a Travel Writer (nonfiction, 2025) Note: He and his travel pal did not hitchhike at all and did not stay in youth hostels, so they might have been on the “hippie trail,” but they did not travel as “hippies.”

138. Grant, Stephen Starring. Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home (nonfiction, 2025).

139. Harrison, Robert Pogue. The Dominion of the Dead (nonfiction, 2003). 

140. Hudson, W.H., ed. & intro by Edward Garnett. Letters from W. H. Hudson, 1901-1922 (nonfiction, 1923)

141. Paul, Elliot. The Life and Death of a Spanish Town (nonfiction, 1937)

142. Wieseltier, Leon. Kaddish (nonfiction, 1998)

143. Stratton-Porter, Gene. At the Foot of the Rainbow (fiction, 1916)

144. Quinn, Spencer. The Dog Who Knew Too Much (fiction, 2011)

145. Karinthy, Frigyes. A Journey Round My Skull (nonfiction, 1939)

146. Cousineau, Phil. The Book of Roads (nonfiction, 2015)

147. Kehlmann, Daniel; trans. Ross Benjamin. The Director (fiction, 2023)

148. Joyce, James; ed. w/ notes by Seamus Deane. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (© 1964)

149. Casebeer, Karen. The Lure (fiction, 2025)

150. The Epic of Gilgamesh

151. Whyman, Paula. Bad Naturalist: One Woman’s Ecological Education on a Wild Virginia Mountaintop (nonfiction, 2025)

152. Burke, James Lee. Another Kind of Eden (fiction, 2021)

153. Goldstein, Rebecca Newberger. 36 Arguments for the Existence of God (fiction, 2010)

154. Frank, Anne. Diary of a Young Girl (nonfiction; definitive edition)

155. Riordan, John J. The Dark Peninsula (nonfiction, 1976)

***

Wind makes wave lines in drifted snow.

New Year’s Resolution: Write More Letters!

 

Doing my part for USPS! Only one stamp left!
Time to purchase more.

Terrible, tragic news came from Denmark on December 30! The Danish postal service, 400 years old, is now kaput!  A hopeful note is sounded in the article you can read by following the link in the previous sentence, as well as the link within the link: “It seems like a slow-motion mistake; letter-writing is coming back into style, especially among young people sick of technology….” I should hope so! 

 

When I heard on NPR that Danes will no longer be able to mail letters, my heart almost froze, and I vowed then and there to write and send more letters in the coming year. I always have done—maybe not as often recently as in former years, but now I am doubly motivated, because I do not want to lose my beloved United States Postal Service! 

View from bank: Where is the bay?

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Wednesday, a friend stuck his head in the door of Dog Ears Books to ask what on earth I was doing there, open on such a cold, blustery day. I told him I had to come to town, anyway, to collect my mail, always hopeful that I’ll find a friendly note in my p.o. box. He asked if my hopes had been rewarded, and I told him, yes, there was a holiday card from a friend, and the day before there had been two letters waiting for me. Hurrah!

 

View from inside bookstore

Also on December 30 I had a large family of customers who had decided to follow the Icelandic Christmas Eve tradition of exchanging books and then spending the evening reading them. Although late for Christmas Eve, they didn’t want to wait another year before getting started, so we had a wonderful time together on a cold, dreary winter day when I hadn’t expected to see a soul.

 

Still on the subject of mail and books, here's a reminder that, thanks to the foresight of Benjamin Franklin (and maybe a little self-interest on his part, too, since he was a printer by trade), the USPS offers a special rate for sending books, known generically now as media mail. It’s a wonderfully economical way to share books with family and friends. Please, however, do not include letters in your book package! Letters are first-class mail and need first-class postage, and I would not want to see book rate (the old name will always take precedence in my mind) vanish from mailing alternatives, having enjoyed it all my life. Magazines and newspapers cannot go at the media rate, either, as they contain advertising. Media mail is intended for educational purposes, a way of promoting national literacy.

 

Coincidentally, as one year passes into another, I find myself halfway through an epistolary novel set in 16^th-century Florence, Italy. Although the novel is written in French (and my French is rusty), it is easier to read than many modern French novels, perhaps because of the epistolary structure. My biggest challenge is keeping the many character/writers straight. Italian characters in a mystery novel written in French and set in the 16^th century = a quadruple challenge! Not that I ever figure out whodunit: I read mystery novels more for settings and characters.

 

On the car radio as I drove home one day in the last week of December, I heard part of a program where one person chooses a book to introduce to two other people, and I was immediately drawn by the discussion because the chosen book of the day was Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. It was interesting to hear how a trio of young people new to the book responded to a story I know practically by heart, how they interpreted the characters, and what themes they saw in the story.

Some people think Austen originally intended her second novel, P&P, to be composed entirely of letters, then changed her mind.

Re-reading her sister Jane's letters
strengthens Elizabeth's prejudice against Darcy.

As it is, there are nineteen letters in the book, all of them fairly long (with the exception of Mr. Bennett’s brief, wry response to a letter from a man his daughter Elizabeth had earlier refused to marry), and Mr. Darcy’s letter to Elizabeth is surely the longest, taking up almost the whole of Chapter 35. That letter, revealing as it does the character of the writer and of the other man Elizabeth had previously found more sympathetic, requires Lizzie to question her previous attitudes toward both. Arriving then back at her friend Charlotte’s house from her daily walk, she learns that she has missed a visit from Darcy’s cousin, but the cousin no longer holds any interest for Elizabeth, who can “think only of her letter,” that is, the letter from Mr. Darcy. Her head is filled with his words, and nothing else can hold her attention. Have you ever had that feeling?

 

(One member of my extended family detests epistolary novels. For me, they can be brilliant, or, perhaps more easily, trite and pedestrian, a lazy writer's shortcut, but certainly no one would accuse Austen of laziness. The quality of writing is separate from a story’s structure.)

 

When it comes to letters that arrive in my own post office box, all are welcome, and none is ever boring. Someone was thinking of me! If we lived only a few miles from one another, we could meet for coffee, go for a walk together, sit and “dream by the fire,” or play outdoors in the snow with my dog. When hundreds of miles separate us, each letter is a precious gift of the sender’s time given me. Priceless!

Envelopes not recycled yet