Reading and Roaming
NEW ZEALAND—DAY 1, AUCKLAND We lost Monday crossing the International Dateline so it is almost noon here on Tuesday. After checking into our hotel, De Bretts, and getting cleaned up, we spent about an hour and a half wandering around center city Auckland. Our hotel is nicely located in an area of restaurants and shops …
Continue reading “Down Under: Ambling in Auckland”
SMALL SCREEN The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (PBS) With all the advance publicity, it’s hard to imagine any viewer is unaware of Burns and Novick’s monumental documentary about the Vietnam War. The range of viewpoints and interviews from all parties (Viet Cong, North Vietnamese Army, South Vietnamese Army plus civilians, American …
Continue reading “Tidy Tidbits: Mostly TV”
READING ROUND-UP. What follows are the mini reviews of all the books I’ve written about in the past three months. A friend suggested I aggregate them so here they are. Everything from Madoff to an advice columnist to a neglected author in nonfiction to several mysteries plus a host of novels from the most literary …
Continue reading “Reading Round-up: July-Sept. 2017”
FEELING GRATEFUL The Chief Penguin and I were extremely fortunate, lucky, actually. We endured an anxious 48 hours in New York as Hurricane Irma moved closer and closer to our coast and to the possibility of obliterating our stretch of paradise. But as Irma shifted eastward and the winds changed direction, we were the beneficiaries …
Continue reading “Tidy Tidbits: Recent Reading, etc.”
