Shetland Islands/Wool Week 2019

In September of 2019 I joined my sis­ter Beth for Wool Week in the Shetland Islands. These are the places that we went and the things we saw. (Click through the gal­leries for more infor­ma­tion in the pic­ture descrip­tions.) Lerwick Lerwick is the capi­tol city of Shetland. We stayed in an apart­ment just up the … 

The Odyssey — Homer

Translator — Emily Wilson I learned of the new trans­la­tion of the Odyssey last sum­mer and fig­ure that per­haps I should revis­it clas­sic that I had last read in col­lege. This new trans­la­tion makes the old sto­ry sparkle. Wilson does a mar­velous job of avoid­ing the baroque lan­guage of pre­vi­ous trans­la­tions and presents the adventures … 

Four Books on the Modern Essay

In the last cou­ple of months I have been read­ing a lot about essays. Of the four books reviews here, the one I’d most rec­om­mend for the gen­er­al read­er is the D’Agata. It’s a col­lec­tion of essays with short intro­duc­to­ry notes suit­ed those curi­ous about the shape of the mod­ern essay and how it got …