BOOK OF THE WEEK While You Were Out: An Intimate Family Portrait of Mental Illness in an Era of Silence by Meg Kissinger Meg Kissinger, a noted journalist who spent several decades covering mental illness issues, bares her soul and that of her family in While You Were Out, a candid and raw account of her family’s …
Category Archives: Books
Tidy Tidbits: Page, Screen, & Plate
RECENT READING: WIVES IN THE 1960’S Absolution by Alice McDermott Set in Saigon in 1963, Absolution focuses on the lives of several wives of Navy officers. Tricia, just 23, has only been married a short time to lawyer Peter on loan to navy intelligence. She is taken up by the somewhat older, more sophisticated Charlene, mother of three. Charlene is forceful, …
January Jots: Reading & Viewing
BOOKS: LITERARY & MYSTERIOUS Dayswork by Chris Bachelder and Jennifer Habel Dayswork is unlike any other novel I’ve read, and I loved it. Written in a style that consists of two-to-three-line paragraphs followed by bursts of conversation and quotes from other writers, it’s quirky, fun, thoughtful, and literary, all at once. A woman academic stuck at home during …
Tidy Tidbits: Winter Pastimes
MOVIES—MEN AT WORK, PHYSICS & MUSIC Oppenheimer ($5.99 on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, et al) Oppenheimer, one of the big films of 2023, is an almost mesmerizing portrayal of one individual’s huge impact on history. Physicist Oppenheimer was a complex man and an intriguing one. Brilliance, coupled with ego and drive, propelled him in overseeing the development of the …
