Category: Books
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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Steam, Silence, and Snow: Reading Pamuk Over Turkish Coffee
There are some novels that almost demand a particular kind of setting, as if the book itself is quietly suggesting how it would like to be read. Orhan Pamuk’s Snow has always felt that way to me. It’s a story of political tension, spiritual yearning, and deep inner stillness set in the snowbound city of…
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When the Prophecy Lands: What Books 7–9 of The Aeneid Made Me Stop and Sit With
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. I left Book 6 with a question I couldn’t quite shake. If you’ve been following along at this table, you’ll remember I closed the last post wondering about the prophet Helenus, that careful, urgent voice from…
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Macchiatos, Murmurs, and the Little Liar: Savoring Story and Truth
One day not so distant in the past, I found myself sitting in a café, finishing the last pages of Mitch Albom’s The Little Liar with a classic macchiato in hand. It struck me that what was in my cup and what was on the page were strangely in sync: a blend of sharpness and…
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Between the Pyre and the Underworld: What Books 5 and 6 of The Aeneid Are Really Asking Us
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. There’s a moment at the opening of Book 5 that I keep returning to. Aeneas and his fleet have just cleared the harbor at Carthage, and as they pull away, they can see Dido’s funeral pyre…
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Is There a Rekindling of Homer Afoot
It was a beautiful spring day, and I had the opportunity to enjoy one of favorite pastimes, sitting in Lola’s Café sipping a cappuccino and reading. This morning I had just cracked open The Odyssey, Homer’s second epic poem, having just recently finished The Iliad. When subtly a movement was detected at the small table…
The Curious Table 