ArchiveMay 2024

I want to start today with the wonderful news that Nathan Thrall received a Pulitzer Prize for his book A Day in the Life of Abed Salama.  I wrote about the book in a blog I posted not long after the start of the Gaza War. To refresh your memory, Thrall examines the many ways, small and large, in which the lives of Palestinians living in Israel are constrained, demeaned and oppressed by the...

My wife is reading one of the best books I’ve read in recent years, Nora Webster, by Colm Toibin. It’s the story of a recently widowed woman living in a small Irish village, trying to keep herself and her family afloat in the face of daunting obstacles. When I was walking past Rosellen’s chair on the way to the bathroom, she looked up and said, “You’re one of the few men I know who could...