Author: Jim Garrett
-
Returning to the Edge.. Another Look Back Back: A Reflection on Virgil
I’ve just closed The Aeneid, and unlike the quiet arrival I felt after Homer, this closing feels different. Less like stepping onto solid ground and more like standing at the edge of something, looking back at a long, uneven road. I want to be honest about that at the outset: I never felt as pulled…
-
Slow Starts, Slow Endings: Reading Butter Across the Pacific
I didn’t expect a novel about butter to make me think so hard about hospitality, hunger, and how differently we read a room depending on where we grew up. But that’s exactly what happened with Asako Yuzuki’s Butter — my third Japanese author, and a book that snuck up on me in the best way.…
-
A Rainy Day, a Cup of Coffee, and an Unexpected Film
While spending a few weeks in Boston, I always keep a running list of things I want to do. After four years of making regular visits, I almost feel like a local. Some activities are reserved for those inevitable rainy New England days, and this happened to be one of them. So, I headed over…
-
A Reflection on the Journey
I’m at that age where trying “new things” includes much less risk than when I was younger. Writing poetry has been one of those things I have been working with and practicing. This is some lines I wrote recently over a few weeks as I reflected on my own journey. In one’s life there are…
-
In Pursuit of the Perfect Cup: A Retired Coffee Pilgrim’s Notes from the Road
There is a line in Dave Eggers’ book The Monk of Mokha that stopped me cold the first time I read it. Describing what it takes to bring a single cup of coffee to your hand, Eggers writes: “Any given cup of coffee might have been touched by twenty hands, from farm to cup.” Twenty…
-
The Reader Being Written
This is Part 4 of a four-part series, a broad conversation about reading and what it does to us over time. No category, no prerequisites. All are welcome at this table. The Table of Contents for this series can be found here. Three posts ago I told you there was a book missing from my…
-
Books Preparing You for Books
This is Part 3 of a four-part series, a broad conversation about reading and what it does to us over time. No category, no prerequisites. All are welcome at this table. The Table of Contents for this series can be found here. There is a book on my daughter’s shelf in Boston that I picked…
-
When the Gods Step Back: What Books 10-12 of The Aeneid Left Me Sitting With
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. I closed the last post standing in the doorway of Virgil’s Iliad, watching the poem’s register shift toward something more martial, more brutal. Books 10 through 12 are where that door swings all the way open,…
-
Chianti, Carbonara, and Clues: An Afternoon with Murder in Chianti
Some books practically invite you into the kitchen while you read them, and Camilla Trinchieri’s Murder in Chianti is one of those novels. The first in her Tuscan mystery series, it’s steeped in food, wine, and the rhythms of village life, all wrapped around a murder investigation that keeps you turning pages. Pairing it with…
-
The Book I Was Supposed to Read
This is Part 2 of a four-part series, a broad conversation about reading and what it does to us over time. No category, no prerequisites. All are welcome at this table. The Table of Contents for this series can be found here. I owe you a confession before we go any further in this series.…
