Easter in Ordinary

For many, this post comes not as news but as unnecessary confirmation of what they already knew: Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow is an absolutely delicious novel! Having seen recommendations from both my sister Andrea and Bill Gates, I purchased a secondhand copy of the book. Naturally, I relished the ample references to Russian and classical literature. Towles cites the oft-quoted line from Tolstoy's Anna Karenina : "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way," and then upends it in the telling of his story. Similarly, Towles introduces film and Humphrey Bogart. The Casablanca theme woven into the story is fantastic and inspires the title of this post. (I will refrain from saying more to avoid spoilers.) Towles' arresting, lush language and astute observations credited to the Gentleman (Count Alexander Rostov) invited substantial underlining of choice passages. I read more slowly than usual through this novel. Rostov,...

Thanks, as always, for reading this post. I am grateful to those readers who find my weekly reading suggestions interesting or even helpful. I also appreciate your feedback. If you want to include a comment below about the article that most strikes you or how it touches you, I would find that helpful.  Weekly, I post four articles that I found significant and a poem accompanied by some comments about what we can learn from them. Our lives are enriched by seeing better. Each week, one article comes from the world of photography, a discipline that is about seeing. Another article comes from the world of technology, hence seeing something of the future. Another article takes up an aspect of our life together, seeing more clearly the other. Another article refers to faith, seeing the unseen. Finally, the weekly post concludes with a poem, because poetry is about seeing words whose arrangement allows us to see anew. This week, we look to the space program, book suggestions, a ...

Mature, public conversation about issues that matter is foundational for democratic society. I am delighted that Mark Zuckerberg's " A Year of Books " offers such an opportunity. To contribute to that dialog, I will offer commentary on each of the readings proposed by Zuckerberg. It was Bill Gates who initially exposed me to the work of Vaclav Smil. In Gates' recommendations for " Beach Reading (and More) ," Microsoft's founder suggested Smil's latest work while also noting his long affection for Smil's writing in his review of the book: I can’t think of anyone better equipped to present a clear-eyed analysis of this subject than Vaclav Smil. I have written several times before about how much I admire Smil’s work. When he tackles a subject, he doesn’t look at just one piece of it. He examines every angle. Even if I don’t agree with all of his conclusions, I always learn a lot from reading him. When Mark Zuckerberg made Smil's Energy: ...