About the author
In Praise of Nursery Tale Anthropomorphism
Animal stories are the stuff of an imaginative child’s delight: Kenneth Grahame’s Ratty and Mole, C.S. Lewis’s beaver family, Beatrix Potter’s Benjamin Bunny. In these stories, impossibility is key. “Lucie opened the door: and what do you think there was inside the hill? – a nice clean kitchen with a flagged floor and wooden beams – just like any other farm kitchen” . . . only suspiciously smaller. In...
Try Again: On Follow-up Attempts
When J.K. Rowling published her latest novel, The Casual Vacancy, back in September, many of her devoted readers wanted to know where the magic—overt or otherwise—had gone. The expectation was understandable. She had done Middle Grades fantasy so well before. Why wouldn’t she produce the same again? We had been told she was working on something substantially different from the Potter series this time. Followers...
Chimneys Dark & Spirits Bright
This post was originally published last December. On the eve of Christmas’s reemergence in England,Charles Dickens and Washington Irving began a correspondence. It’s no secret, especially at this time of year, that Dickens was the father of Victorian Christmas. English folk had all but forgotten the festivities once surrounding the advent season, thanks to a superstition-wary protestant reign. By means of on...
Shire Reckonings
“What fun! What fun to be off again, off on the road with dwarves! This is what I have been really longing for, for years! Goodbye!’ he said, looking at his old home and bowing to the door.” ~ Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring There was a time I enjoyed road trips. When I began college, I landed in a group of friends who jumped in the car on a whim and freely drove here, there, anywhere. Freedom. C...
Other Wizards, Many Worlds
We all know which child wizard first grabbed his Elementary Spells textbook and walked the castle hallways to Magical History 101, right? Not necessarily. Decades before J.K. Rowling put Harry and Ron in a flying Ford Anglia on their way to Hogwarts, Diana Wynne Jones sent a young enchanter named Cat Chant crashing into the local post office on a contraption of enchanted bicycles and magicked flying furniture – ...
The Bearable Lightness of Letting Go
Undeterred by the cold and rainy weather, they came. Car after car, every passenger door flung open, each woman leaping out to scan the tables, hawk-eyed, grasping the best pillow or wine glass or ceramic on the table, throwing cash at us while diving back into the car and speeding on to the next driveway full of hopeful clutter. It was madness. It was bizarre. It was actually quite admirable. It was a yard sale. ...
Staying Awake
It started with LOST. It was a revelation: Action-packed, prime time adventure television could be really, really good. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy my fair share of T.V. storylines that boast big explosions rather than fine character development. But in the last decade, a number of shows have given us attempts at something more thoughtful, connected, purposeful. Lost’s six-season run saw Thursday morning staff...
The Isness of Art
In downtown Hanover, New Hampshire, there is a gallery that carries local and regional art: the League of NH Craftsmen Gallery. You can enter the front door at Lebanon Street and find yourself in a broad, open space of gorgeous local handicraft on display. Or you can come in at the back, as I prefer, climbing steps past a downstairs studio where a bearded man cradles fast-spinning clay in his hands. The door at the t...
