If I read as many books as I do book reviews, I’d never get anything done. In honor of Memorial Day yesterday I read an essay in the NY Times book review of a selection of books about the Big One, WWII, by Adam Kirsch. He opens with the sad […]
The blurb on my Facebook page took me aback. RIP Bob Paquette. What? Bob, as everyone in the Valley knows, was the voice of the morning. His familiar calm tone and steady delivery has graced our kitchen for decades. I cannot imagine turning on that familiar 88.5 fm signal and […]
I have been writing this blog, Readuponit, since November 2004. A friend quoted me from a February 2006 post the other day when I was on my way to Cyprus. It’s a slightly exotic place that few people visit, and when I read the quoted text, I thought about how […]
I’ve reached a milestone, and forgive me for blogging about this once already. But I thought I had a deal to keep the GoNOMAD Cafe open, and alas, like many things in life, it was not to be. With the combination of recalcitrant landlords and shaky finances, the deal went […]
“I think these burgers need to go back on the grill,” my daughter said, as we sat on the deck at the season’s inaugural barbecue. I heard what she said but it was too late, I’d already taken a big bite. She was right. so she took the burgers, put […]
Imagine living to the ripe old age of 104….and spending eight decades of that long life in virtual seclusion. I read a column called Remembrances tonight in the WSJ about Huguette Clark, a society girl who made her debut at age 20, and then married at 22. Yet despite being […]
Of all the lovable and charming characters on The Office, Andy Bernard is to me the funniest of all. Is this because of my growing up in Ivy League Princeton, NJ, where there were families like Mr Bernard’s who brag about their Cornell roots yet are absolutely terrible at their […]
When I saw the eponymous title of a new book by a less-than-admired president, I knew I wanted to read more. Millard Filmore is a new book by Paul Finkelman that explains the background of how a barely-known comptroller of New York became President of the United States. His fortune […]
Today was a nearly perfect Sunday. I discovered another bike trail, this one between Lanesborough and Adams, and enjoyed time with a good friend riding through wooded trails, beside lakes and streams, enjoying the breeze, the ducks, and interesting conversation. Everyone riding on the trail seemed happy, as if this […]
What’s the difference between the French and the Americans? Peggy Noonan writes in today’s WSJ that a striking contrast can be seen when comparing how the two countries reacted the the arrest last week of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was once considered to be the next president of France. Now he’s […]
Last night I read in the WSJ that a ban on circumcision is being placed on the ballot in San Francisco in November. And that a similar ban was proposed in Massachusetts last year. How come I never heard about that? The San Francisco initiative would ban the circumcision of […]
When the first English and Dutch settlers came to Cape Cod, it turns out that they were failures at fishing. In Paul Schneider’s history of the Cape and Islands, “The Enduring Shore,” he writes that the ‘master salt maker’ on the Mayflower turned out to not know how to make […]