Last week, Rosellen and I bought a couch. Our daughter and son-in-law have been after us for years to replace the disreputable piece in our TV room with visible staples holding the fabric together and an unsleepable pullout bed that is a chiropractor’s dream. When we sent Elana a picture of our purchase, she commented that it looked surprisingly like the old couch, minus the staples, which tells...

I should begin here with a list of disclaimers as long as the lists of books and authors themselves.  One’s reaction to literature has a strong element of personal taste that’s beyond argument. The same is true for judgments of movies, art and music. I was reminded of this recently when dear friends posted an impassioned attack on a movie they had just watched which they thought failed on...

A slight change of plans. I was supposed to follow last week’s list of non-fiction books with a similar fiction list. That’s proving to be more difficult than I had anticipated, so I’m going to defer for another week. Instead, I’m posting an addendum to the non-fiction list. While scouring our bookshelves for fiction titles, I encountered more non-fiction books that I’m embarrassed to have...

Tom Rodriguez was my student at T.H. Rogers School in Houston in the 80s. We reconnected several years ago, to my delight. Recently, he sent me this note, which contains a request which I found, at once, intriguing, flattering and daunting. That he – and his classmates – found the books that I introduced them to forty years ago sufficiently memorable to want more of same is astonishing. Here’s...

                                                          Benjamin Ferencz This week’s blog entry follows a...