Of Mice and Magic: In Praise of Animal Stories
For the past twenty years or so, Pip Squeak the mouse has held a spell over me.
Read More ›For the Love of Books
Not too long ago, The Atlantic explored the phenomenon of people who do Goodreads reading challenges: Start with a set number of books you want to read in a year. Track how well you’re meeting your goal and see if you make it into the elite percentage of people who manage to read something like fifty books over the course of 365 days. Read to improve and prove yourself. Seeing this, I was reminded of a friend who always felt an unrelenting urgency to read more and faster. “How many books would you say you’ve read so far this month?” she’d anxiously ask, wanting to see how she compared.
Read More ›The Family That Sings Together
“Why don’t we have a little sing-along?”
For many years, those words filled me with irritation. A lazy evening after dinner trying to decide what to do—watch a movie? Read? Play a board game?—and then would come Mom’s inevitable suggestion of a family jam session. None of us seven children ever met the idea with enthusiasm.