Caroline

25 October 2026: "Carefully, Caroline closed the Bible around the splinter and slipped it back into the trunk. She felt the way she had felt when her brother died, and when her children were born. Open, so that everything reached straight through to her heart. Entirely conscious of the current of life coursing through her. Until this day, she hadn't noticed the concordant notes between the two. This was the feeling that came over her each time the veil between this world and the next was lifted" (Miller 329).

This morning, I finished Caroline, my book club's selection for this month. I am not quite sure what I think about it, but this passage felt true to me. It's how I've felt over this last year: kind of cracked open to life, death, pain, joy...like a live nerve. 

Work Cited

Miller, Sarah. Caroline: Little House, Revisited. William Morrow, 2018.

Done with Rednecks...

27 September 2026: I finished Rednecks this morning, just in time for my book club's discussion tonight. I found it a compelling read. I wanted more about and more time with these characters, but that's not a criticism. Brown does a good job making some of them really pop without a lot of time on the stage. 

He can also write some sentences that stop you in your tracks. Here's a couple about a "touched" miner/explosive expert called Boom, setting up a bomb for a bridge: "The old dynamiter spread his hands across the broad flap of the mailbag and looked to the sky over the bridge, as if envisioning a work of art. 'High as heaven, baby. Gonna tickle the angel's feet'" (254).

Work Cited

Brown, Taylor. Rednecks. St. Martin's, 2024.

Rednecks

6 September 2026: "Sid had dug the black veins of West Virginia cola that made hte companies rich that hired these men. Money that could buy mansions on teh shores of cold, clear lakes and twelve-cylinder Italian automobiles and murder in muddy streets behind the gleaming badges of private detective agencies. Coal money, God-strong in Mingo County. Sid smiled because he was risen from the mud of this place, born to meet such men in the street" (9).

Started reading Rednecks, my book club's current selection, today. Digging it so far. And just in time for Labor Day.

Work Cited

Brown, Taylor. Rednecks. St. Martin's, 2024.

Vigil

18 July 2026: Not sure how I feel about George Saunders' Vigil, which I finished this afternoon, but these lines sure did speak to me at this moment in time:

"I could comfort.

I could.

Thank you, thank you, I whispered" (172).

Work Cited

Saunders, George. Vigil. Random House, 2026.

"each wind is self-registering..."

10 July 2026: "The wind-driven rain had carved ruler-straight ridges behind each pebble, from which he could read the precise direction of the storm. 'All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye,' he wrote, 'and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most. Thus each wind is self-registering.' With this he closed his Journal, his great monument to self-registration, forever" (Walls 493).

Finished the Thoreau biography this morning in the waiting room of the walk-in clinic. I think being in public prevented me from getting too teary as it closed out. 

Amazing life. Amazing book. 

(Finally decided to get this crud looked at. The verdict is something viral. Got a nasal spray and steroids.) 

Work Cited

Walls, Laura Dassow. Henry David Thoreau: A Life. The U of Chicago P, 2017.

"How swiftly, at last, but unnoticed..."

8 July 2026: In 1859, shortly after his father died, Thoreau wrote to a friend, "How swiftly, at last, but unnoticed, a generation passes away!" (qtd in. Walls 437).

Once again, this biography reveals a Thoreau whose life and words stretch through time, touching this moment. As I work to clean up and clean out the my parents' Martinsburg house, they are especially poignant and well-timed. 

Less than thirty pages left and I find myself sad that I'll be done soon...

Work Cited

Walls, Laura Dassow. Henry David Thoreau: A Life. The U of Chicago P, 2017.

Sundays with Henry, Veronica, and Jo...

5 July 2026: 

"When Min, a Maltese kitten, joined the household, her wild freaks delighted him and he played with her by the hour, pausing to shake his head in his Journal: 'What sort of philosophers are we, who know nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?'" (Walls 283).

Still working my way through Walls' biography of Thoreau, seeing connections--both profound and silly--on every page. 

Work Cited

Walls, Laura Dassow. Henry David Thoreau: A Life. The U of Chicago P, 2017.

"in the midst of human stories, God reveals himself"

30 June 2026: Quite moved by Pope Leo's comments here.

"Leo also explained that writing, as a human exercise, ultimately leads to God.

'When we delve into the very depths of our humanity, we are not far from God; for there, in the midst of very human stories, God reveals himself,' Leo said."

That's it, right? That's the beauty and power and the point of it all. 

"Nature is not yours until you are more hers"

28 June 2026: Still working my way through Laura Dassow Walls's biography of Thoreau. The section on Margaret Fuller's death provides moving details that I didn't know before (some of them disturbing). Walls concludes that section with an idea that really struck me: 

"Once again harrowed by tragedy, Thoreau turned not away from the things of nature, but towards them, voicing again his awe before the fundamental strangeness of materiality. Nature is not yours until you are more hers: that sympathy had been part of Fuller's legacy to him" (294).

Work Cited

Walls, Laura Dassow. Henry David Thoreau: A Life. The U of Chicago P, 2017.

Porch reading...

21 June 2026: Didn't expect Father's Day to hit me the way it has; I'm okay, but it's...hard, especially because of everything going on with my mom. 

Earlier today, I fought off some weepiness by going outside to read on the porch. (Would be weird to sit on the porch in broad daylight and cry.)

Sitting there with my big old Thoreau bio, I realized that wasn't a bad tribute to my dad, who would take his books out to the deck to read, often with Sugie or Snow with him. My girls stayed inside, but one of them wasn't happy about it. 

American Rambler

31 May 2026: In American Rambler, which I am really enjoying about 100 pages in, Isaac Fitzgerald writes some lines that I could not more heartily co-sign. Writing about attending Easter services at a Swedenborgian church and thinking about the parishoners, he explains, "That devotion is something that still perplexes me--unless it's a devotion to art, or my friends, or walking. But in a way, as I grow older, I'm beginning to realize that it may all be the same thing, and that's enough."

Also appropriate musings for today, both Whitman's birthday and what would have been (well, still is) my parents' 56th anniversary.

Work Cited

Fitzgerald, Isaac. American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed. Knopf, 2026.

Finishing The Master

30 May 2026: I hadn't planned to, but last night I found myself finishing The Master. Echoing the pace and style of his subject, Tóibín's prose makes a reader take their time; you literally can't dash through these pages. To be clear, this is a feature, not a bug. 

So when I picked the book up last night with about eighty pages to go, I thought I would maybe get through forty. But I was so quietly captivated by it that I just kept going. 

I think I'll think about this one for a while: Henry's push-and-pull between the social and the individual, his quietly torturous repression, and his devotion to his work. None of these are easy to describe or classify. And all of that makes perfect sense to me.  

Three books...

29 May 2026: Working my way through three different "for fun" books, which I can't remember doing before: American Rambler (for my book club), that Thoreau biography, and The Master (those last two from my bedside table piles). 

My dad did this all the time. I can't say I saw the appeal--dividing my attention like that. But now that I have the time to do it (and am making the time to do it), I get it. Like, of course it's great. 

I didn't set out to do this as a little tribute to him, but I like that it is turning out to be--and I hope it's a habit I keep up (or at least, reading more than one book at a time).

The Master

26 May 2026: Working my way through another book that has sat on a bedside table for nearly a decade: Colm Tóibín's The Master. Beautiful and haunting prose throughout so far. This passage stuck with me today, as Tóibín's fictionalized version of Henry James remembers meeting a wounded Civil War soldier at a Union hospital camp: 

"He wanted to hold his young frined, help him now that the worst was over, take him home to his family to be looked after. But he also know that, as much as he wanted to aid and console the soldier, he wanted to be alone in his room with the night coming down and a book close by and pen and paper and the knowledge that the door would remain shut until the morning came and he would not be disturbed. The gap between the two desires filled him with sadness and awe at the mystery of the self, the mystery of having a single consciousness, knowing merely its own bare feelings and experiencing singly and alone its own pain or fear or pleasure or complacency" (166-7).

Work Cited

Tóibín, Colm. The Master: A Novel. Scribner, 2004.

Quiet, rainy, May day...

21 May 2026: After a very early heat wave, a few days of cool rain are setting in. We need the rain, so I am grateful (mostly). 

I ran errands most of the morning and got some work done on campus. I was home by a bit after noon. 

It's been a quiet since then--getting a bit of work done, talking with Tara (stuff with my mom is...hard), and keeping an eye on Jo (who is having another bad stomach day), and reading for fun. Reading two books at once (soon to be three), which I realize is an unintentional tribute to my dad.  

(Jo's okay now...just crashing big time on the couch. I said to her, "I am sorry you aren't feeling great, but it's been nice to be here with you today.")

Small Things Like These

18 May 2026: Early in the spring, Randy (who I wrote about here) handed me a slim book. He remembered me saying that "Hanrahan" doesn't appear in a lot of literature. This book, Small Things Like These (by Claire Keegan), he said, had some Hanrahan in it. 

I just finished reading it and my goodness: what a book! 

I found myself thinking that it's precisely the kind of book my dad would enjoy and that we would enjoy talking about. His favorite short story, after all, was "The Dead." 

This book's answer to its central question--what do you do when you must acknowledge an travesty happening almost in plan sight?--is profoundly moral without being simple or naive. Just an absolute jewel.

"the humble pencil"

16 May 2026: After sitting on my bedside table for nearly ten years (!), I am finally digging into Laura Dassow Walls' biography of Thoreau. I am still in the early chapters and really loved this little excerpt about his family's pencil business, something that I have always wanted to know more about:

"Thanks to Henry's improvements, for a time Thoreau pencils were the best in America, sought by artists, engineers, surveyors, architects, carpenters, and writers--everyone who depended on a good pencil. Thoreau's own working method coevolved with the family pencils. Quite literally, Thoreau's writing career rested on the humble pencil, so much a part of him that, when he drew up a list of travel essentials, he forgot to mention a pencil, the same way he forgot to mention air to breathe or water to drink" (40).

Thinking about how lost I feel sometimes when I don't have a pen or pencil on hand...

(Also thinking about setting a goal of moving a certain number of books from that beside table--and the other one--this summer. We'll see. Right now I am working on two.)

Work Cited

Walls, Laura Dassow. Henry David Thoreau: A Life. The U of Chicago P, 2017.

Reading, thank-you notes, and course prep...

28 December 2025: Started the day off finishing my book club's latest novel, Food Person. I didn't love it, but I am glad to have read it and I am excited to talk about it with Kaitlyn and Cory next week. (We had to reschedule.) 

Next, I knocked out my thank-you notes. Some are for folks who sent flowers or other gifts when my dad died. The rest are for Christmas gifts. When you are feeling the way I am these days, taking the time to pick out the stationery I'll use, thinking about what to write, and addressing the correspondance is exactly the kind of work that can be satisfying and rewarding, reminding me of what I am thankful for. 

Finally, I've been working on my syllabi, particularly for ENGL 377. Making steady progress here and feeling excited about the work the students and I will take on this semester.

In between all of that, there's been walking (mostly around the house--too cold and rainy for me to venture out), movies, and TV. 

Almost got misty when I saw that Bob's Burgers reruns are on until 9:00 (and then the regular episode on Fox at 9:30). Perfect accompaniment for working through my list...

Still thinking about "What the Living Do," perhaps the perfect text for this "always strange but this year stranger than ever" time of year before the spring semester starts.

Hope, joy, and protest...

18 October 2025: I couldn't take part in the No Kings Protest here in town (where over 2000 people showed up!) because I was accompanying a group of my students to the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival today. They got to listen to Maureen Corrigan deliver a heck of a talk on Gatsby and got to meet Percival Everett. Everett told us, "These are hard times," but reminded us that "the most subversive thing you can do is read." 

Spending time with these students--who love reading, literature, thinking, and the world so much--gives me hope and reminds me that opposition movements need hope and joy.

The Backyard Bird Chronicles

4 October 2025: "It is good to mourn and wish it weren't so." --Amy Tan, The Backyard Bird Chronicles

Started listening to this one today while getting chores done. So far, it's beautiful reminder of the pains and rewards (linked so often) of paying attention to what's around us.