Friday’s Bacon featured a year’s worth of nonfiction reads for 2018. Today’s post offers only one recommendation for fiction readers: if you haven’t devoted yourself to a big brick of a novel lately – one that could be used as…
The world today is noisy with news. We’re yanked from one story to the next with hardly a moment to pause and reflect. Anger sometimes simmers just beneath the surface of those making – and reporting – the news. It’s…
Even a joyful holiday ballet like The Nutcracker nods gently towards madness, darkness, and fear: in the dangerous Mouse King, first and foremost, and also in the mysterious magician and uncle, Drosselmeier. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s story – on which it is…
I dreamt of a city too strange to be believed. A ship sailed through the sky, a flower docked on the shore, a lion with a mermaid’s tail guarded the bay. Mighty metal Super Trees rose above a garden and…
Today’s poem and photos come to you from a city cold and grey and drear – it’s winter here. But there’s Christmas cheer, and the Buddha, and Shinto shrines too. The lights that glow in the Christmas trees and the…
Sometimes a gift comes to you – unbidden – from God, the universe, or your local bookstore. A few months ago, I was chatting with Peter Taylor, a high school senior, at Parnassus. He was behind the counter, working part-time…