Category: Books
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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…
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Maybe We Should Read the Classics More Often
Most novels start when we open the cover and turn to that first page. But not this one. It started when the car went into park and we walked across the gravel parking lot. I found myself wandering through an antique mall in St. Louis, you know the kind, where the aisles are narrow and…
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What Are We Waiting For? A Conversation Hemingway Started
First there was the Old Man and the Sea, a book that had already quietly rearranged some furniture in my thinking, and then arrived, Islands in the Stream. That’s the spirit I’d like to carry into what I’m sharing here today. Pull up a chair. Bring your coffee. There’s a particular kind of conversation Hemingway…
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From Troy to Rome: What Virgil Is Doing to Me
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. I did not expect Homer to spoil me so thoroughly. After months with the Iliad and the Odyssey, those wild, wind-torn worlds of Achilles’s rage and Odysseus’s wandering cunning, I turned the first page of Virgil’s…
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Penelope Speaks, Part 2 — The Reckoning Arrives
I promised you “the rest of the story.” Here it is. And I will warn you upfront: it is not a comfortable place to land. When I closed Part 1 of this series, I told you that the further I moved into The Penelopiad, the more the Odyssey lens would shift from clarifying to uncomfortable.…
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Penelope Speaks — And I Finally Know How to Listen
There is a specific kind of reading experience that only happens when you have already done the work. Not reading more books, necessarily — but doing the reading inside yourself that prepares you to receive what a book is offering. I had that experience once already in this journey, when a copy of The Penelopiad…
The Curious Table 