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Sometimes in the Dewey Decimal project I end up with bad choices. In this instance, the 310s are statistics. There were a couple of almanacs and this book. Then, for added bonus, I lost the book while I was reading it. I ended up buying a used copy in excellent condition to finish reading it. […]

Stories exist to make sense of life. J. Robert Lennon, Familiar.

As the father of a young daughter and a member of a family which went 59 years without a female birth before my daughter’s birth, girls are a bit of a mystery to me. No sisters, no nieces, and only a single female cousin who was over a decade older than me so I knew […]

Looking at her I thought of going out in the fields with my wife back when we were so in love we didn’t know what it was. Denis Johnson, Jesus’ Son.

There are a few places where the Dewey Decimal System betrays its Victorian origins. The 200s are one of these. 220–289 are dedicated to Christianity and the Bible. All other religions are given 290–299. So faced with the full panoply of world religions outside of Christianity, I ended up choosing this slender book on cults aimed […]

Though he did not want to desecrate his grief, Alec nonetheless said, I just buried my father, I’d like to come up. David Bezmogis, The Free World.

All it really took to hook me on the book was the title. A priest and a nun get married and have kids? Right up my alley. Where the big surprise came in (and perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise), was the fact that the Boston priest sexual abuse scandal came into play in […]

At least we have our own cell to settle in. At least the baby doesn’t die of the shot the way he could have, with all the cell fleas and a flesh wound and no mother. He is used to Sharon more anyway is what I suppose, what with the mother no doubt seeping milk […]

But ours is a movement that is only half certain where it is marching, and poetry is more often relegated to the “cultural events,” the entertainment segment of feminist conferences, rallies, and meetings, the thing we drop into when the real political work is over. It needs to be more than that, and I am […]