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 …
Author Archives: lara
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 …
Letter Home — 29 Jan, 2019
“I never could get the hang of Thursday” Arthur Dent Thursday is easy. It is preceded by Wednesday and followed by Friday. Wednesday is the pivot point of the week. The day of looking forward to the work I have to do and looking back to see how much of my to-do list I have …
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 …
Letter Home 4 Aug, 2018
Dearest ones, I went to a lecture last week. Ilya Kaminsky, a famous Ukrainian poet, began by asking “How is life on this shiny planet?” I did not know how to answer him. He taped pictures by Diego Rivera to the wall and read from Calvino’s Invisible Cities. He spoke of how our work is …