One man’s rules for a good life and the reason that he chose them. I don’t always agree with him on either the rules or the logic behind them.
Author Archives: lara
Mama Makes Up Her Mind and Other Dangers of Southern Living — Bailey White
I was looking for something more recent by White but she doesn’t seem to have done anything other than a christmasy book since her heyday in the late 90’s. So I reread this because everyone needs to have an aunt who teaches an alligator to bellow on command and a mother who… well Ms. White …
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Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe — Fanny Flagg
(pub. 2002) A mix of the contemporary interviews, in the moment story telling, and little bits from newspapers make an interesting way of telling a story. Much of the story is narrated by Ninny Threadgoode — a woman who married in the to the Threadgoode family. She’s not exactly an unreliable narrator but she has her …
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Pachinko — Min Jin Lee
(pub. 2017) The game of pachinko is little like pinball and little like a slot machine. You don’t need to know much more about the game other than to understand that the machines are manipulated in much the same way the slot machines are programmed. To favor the house at all times but to allow …
Women & Power: A Manifesto — Mary Beard
(pub. 2017) Two essays published in the London Review of Books in 2014 and 2017 In the Public Voice of Women, Beard shows the depth and breadth of the practice of the silencing of women. She begins with the silencing of Penelope by her son Telemachus in the Odyssey. When Penelope enters the hall to ask …