by Craig Nagel | Jan 7, 2014 | Musings
For much of the past two years, I’ve been working on writing a memoir about boyhood. The work has not proceeded smoothly, but rather by fits and starts. A scene here, a character there, now and then a recollected incident, followed by a week or two of maddening...
by Craig Nagel | Jan 7, 2014 | Musings
“The image of the spiritual founding of America that generations of Americans have grown up with was created, oddly enough, by a poet who lived two centuries after the event in a country three thousand miles away. Her name was Felicia Dorothea Hemans and she was not...
by Craig Nagel | Jan 7, 2014 | Musings
“What, exactly, is the point of reading, especially if it’s fiction?” A friend asked the question, and it got me to wondering. Why do some of us elect to spend thousands of hours of our admittedly short lives with our noses buried in books? What real gain is made by...
by Craig Nagel | Jan 5, 2014 | Musings
It’s that time of year again: reading season. A splendid opportunity is banging at the storm door. You can, of course, read anything you want to, year around. But there’s something about shivery winter nights that makes the prospect of curling up with a book extra...
by Craig Nagel | Jan 5, 2014 | Musings
Looking for some books to fill the void of lengthy winter evenings? Some stories that might ease their way into your head and gradually enrich your life? If you’re willing to have a few platitudes challenged and brave enough to encounter characters who pulse and...
