My favorite read of 2025 was actually my re-read of George Eliot's "Middlemarch". But sticking to new works as usual: I read 38 works of fiction and nonfiction for the first time in '25, and of those I've picked out again my favorite ten. This year I went somewhat dark, for me. I took in … Continue reading My favorite reads of 2025
Very near the end of the "Divine Comedy", Dante and his beloved Beatrice leave behind the planets of our solar system and enter what was known as the sphere of the Fixed Stars. "Before you enter further here," Beatrice tells Dante, "look down and see how vast a universe / I have put beneath your … Continue reading Dante’s Pale Blue Dot
I invited my family to see the April 8 eclipse, and we found a place on a bay in the St. Lawrence River. We had ourselves a grand little reunion up there on the Canadian border, and a great couple of days together. And we got to see a total eclipse, a first for each … Continue reading Reflecting on the total solar eclipse of April 8
As an amateur astronomer, I took special pleasure in all the astronomical imagery in Milton's "Paradise Lost". Milton depicts Satan exploring the vastness and boundaries of three immense worlds: Hell, Chaos, and the created universe that contains our Earth. At one point he has Satan landing on the surface on the Sun, which is such … Continue reading Satan in Milton’s telescope
My ten most memorable reads of 2022, fiction and nonfiction, out of my 42 first-time reads: 1. The Book of Job -- Robert Alter's translation “Oh, let that night be barren, let it have no song of joy.Let the day-cursers hex it, those ready to rouse Leviathan.Let its twilight stars go dark.Let it hope for … Continue reading Favorite reads of 2022
I have an old telescope, through which I've spent many hours observing and photographing the sky. An old blog of mine, Catching the Sky, has many of my photos and observations. I've been looking through my photos and journals in recent days, partly inspired by Tom McLeish's book, Faith and Wisdom in Science. His book … Continue reading Orion, the Bear and the Pleiades (Job 38)
I wrote the meditation below during a yoga teacher-training retreat in October 1999. We had our talent-show night, and I chose to contribute a kind of meditation/poetry reading. I don't know how well it came off as poetry, and it was quite different from the other entries that night, but it was nonetheless well-appreciated. __________________________________________ … Continue reading Orbits of the Soul
August 19, 2020 In my first searches for “War and Peace” on YouTube -- the day after I’d shown my kids some summaries of Moby-Dick, The Odyssey, and Frankenstein -- I learned that there had been a play in 2012-17, “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812” . It played in New York (and … Continue reading Natasha, Pierre, and that comet again
August 18, 2020 Comet Neowise had already faded by the time I started watching the BBC’s mini-series of “War and Peace” on July 25, up here in Egremont. I watched the whole series in just two days. Another week, and I had the book in hand – the Anthony Briggs translation from 2005. I’d never … Continue reading A small comet and a very Big Book
