Tag: books

What I’m Reading: The Lost Letter

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About two years ago, I went through a phase in which I read a bunch of historical fiction books in a row that were all very similar to one another: they all had at least one storyline that took place during the Holocaust, and another that took place in a different era, either before or after. As both narratives moved along, connections were revealed between the two stories, building to an emotional climax revealing the true power of the human spirit. If this sounds glib, I don’t mean it to; I love these books. I find them inspirational, heart-wrenching and heartwarming. And the novel with which I decided to revisit the genre, Jillian Cantor’s The Lost Letter, was no exception. Continue reading →

What I’m Reading: A Body of Work

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When it came to reading, I used to be all fiction, all the time. I loved (and still do love) the escapism, the imagination and the different writing styles that are all part of the genre. But a couple years ago I picked up my first memoir, Ruth Reichl’s Tender at the Bone, the first of her three memoirs chronicling her food-influenced childhood up through her years as the NYT Restaurant Critic, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. These days, I think what pulls me into memoirs is that there must be an aspect that I can relate to or am interested in, Continue reading →

Bookcase Baskets

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When we first moved to Bethesda, I was contemplating getting my own desk for our apartment, in addition to the desk that we brought from Hoboken. Jeff had always used that one more, especially during grad school, so it felt like “his” desk, and I thought that if I would be working from home it would make sense for me to get my own. But as the apartment came together and we discovered how much space there truly was, we decided instead to finish off the “office” with a bookcase that matched the desk we had. Continue reading →

Inspirational Art

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My senior year of college, I wrote an English thesis on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s nonfiction. Probably my favorite part of writing my thesis was that I had a thesis carrel in the library where I could keep books and work on my paper. It was on the top floor in the back corner in a section that few people used, next to a window overlooking the quad, and I thought it was lovely—but I’m someone capable of finding a desk lovely. Continue reading →