When I used to come to Santa Monica for work, I’d stop in at a local AM/PM to pick up a copy of the Los Angeles Times. I read that paper growing up and particularly enjoyed Al Martinez columns. It was always nice to come back and read the paper early in the morning. This…
The world is a noisy place and it is hard to tune out the orchestra of modern life. So I seek quiet places. I returned to one such place over the holiday weekend, at a resort in West Virginia. The resort itself is noisy and chaotic as resorts often are. But it is surrounded by…
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died 199 years ago today. I once wrote a time-travel story where, on their dying day, Adams and Jefferson were brought together on the shores of New Jersey to watch the fireworks display at the Bicentennial celebration in New York City, and to see proof through the night that the…
Though I dutifully filled out all of the forms online ahead of time, when I arrived for a recent medical visit, the receptionist handed me a dreaded clipboard and asked me to “fill out the highlighted parts.” This caught me in a Puckish moment. I proceeded to fill out all of the parts so indicated…
To escape the heat, I dragged a reluctant Montainge downstairs, where it was cooler, and collapsed into a comfortable chair beneath the breath of an air conditioner vent. Montainge was going on about sadness, but I muted him beneath the book cover and sat listening to my youngest daughter sing in the shower in the…
The best part of my early morning walks in summer is pausing under this goldenrain tree. If I am listening to a book or music, I pause the audio and stand still, listening. The tree hums. The bees pollinating the flowers in the crown seem to harmonize so that the tree sounds like some kind…
My grandfather got me my well-worn edition of Our Oriental Heritage back in April 1999, from a used bookstore in Nyack, New York. Our Oriental Heritage was the first volume in what historian Will Durant thought would be a 5-volume survey of civilization called THE STORY OF CIVILIZATION. It was published in 1935. I first…
If one were to peruse the list of books I have read since 1996, the first item of note might be the book that started it all, #1 on the list: From Earth to Heaven by Isaac Asimov. Why this book? Why the list? Why now? In other words, how did it all start? In…
I’m not normally one for prompts, but I saw prompt the other day asking about something the writer learned in high school. I found myself thinking about it throughout the day, and jotting notes to myself about things I’d learned in high school. Here are ten of them.
I am on a long-weekend getaway with the family after a very busy week. I got this week’s Shelf-Life post partially written, and then was up early this morning working on it some more by the fireplace in the resort lobby. But I felt like I was rushing things when I should be taking my…