Category: Books
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Longing for Home When Everything Else Looks Easier
Aison, Greek (Athens), Classical period, about 420 BC. Cosmetics container (pyxis) depicting the meeting of Odysseus and Nausikaa. Ceramic, red-figure technique. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Accession 04.18a-b. Personal photography. This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. In my last post, we sat…
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Journey as Transformation
Personal photography. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Gallery 215A — Homer and the Epic Tradition. This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. The saying goes, “You can never go home again.” I’ve been thinking that’s only half the trouble. You don’t have to…
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A Return to Homer: On with The Odyssey
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. The Literary Spine brought me first to The Iliad — and having finished it ahead of schedule, I arrived at The Odyssey right on time, returning to the windswept shores, the restless seas, and the long…
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The Iliad – A Fresh Retrospective
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. It reaches across 2,700 years and finds you where you live. If you’re just joining this journey, I’d invite you to visit the Table of Contents linked at the top of this post.. If you have…
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Rage, Honor, and the Long Ships Home: My Introduction to Homer
This is part of a series. To find the Table of Contents for this series start by clicking here. My 2026 journey along the spine of Western literature — what I’m calling The Literary Spine — got off to an exhilarating start earlier this year. Immediately, Homer’s epic, The Iliad, drew me into its ancient…
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A Walk Along the Spine of Western Literature
AI-generated image · Created with ChatGPT for Feature Image I’ve spent my retirement years reengaging with books, coffee, cuisine, and culture across the world. From reading books I was supposed to have read in high school to building friendships with those interested in arts and culture I found new interests laying near the surface and…
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Paris, With Hemingway as My Guide
There are books you read and set aside. And then there are books that change your itinerary. A few days before my family and I left for Paris, I finished A Moveable Feast — Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of his years as a young, nearly penniless writer living in the city in the 1920s. I’d been…
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You Already Know How to Write a Poem
Think about the last time something stopped you. A sky that went orange at the edges. A song that found you at exactly the wrong — or right — moment. The way a room feels after someone leaves it. You noticed. You felt something shift. That’s where poems begin. I decided at the start of…
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A Drink to Gather Around
“Good morning, Tennessee Jim.” I hear it every time I walk through the door at Caffè Vittoria on Hanover Street in Boston’s North End. Before I’ve said a word, my cappuccino and biscotti are already on their way to my table. Four years of visits. One barista who simply paid attention. It is, I’ve come…
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Two Faces of the Same Truth: Faces, Faith, and the Art of Being Seen
There are moments in reading when a book reaches across the page and grabs you by the collar — not with a shout, but with a whisper. That is what Theo of Golden did to me. Then again, unexpectedly, that same book quietly sent me back to a very different one I had read not…
