Diane Girard writes: "It's like a religion — you believe in it, or you don’t. I believe that not everyone can become rich. However, some of us may manage to live out our lives without losing all our savings. I plan to be one of those people beca…

Jeanne Hubbell Asher writes: "Aspects of the estate sale are rich subjects for high drama, theater of the absurd or sometimes a farce.  Perhaps the sales could best be described as improvisational with deeply moving personal sagas tempered with,…

Jo Freeman reviews The Wrong Side of Murder Creek: A White Southerner in the Freedom Movement: To those of us who were civil rights activists in the 1960s, Bob Zellner and Constance Curry were legends in their own time. Not big legends like Stokely Ca…

Lords of Finance, apart from being a wonderful lesson in international monetary economics and finance, is a page turner. No Room for Doubt will appeal especially to our readers as it shows how one remarkable senior woman who overcomes the odds and achi…

Margaret Cullison writes: "I met one of my most memorable friends at a time when I needed a good friend. I’d just moved to the San Francisco Bay area and, while still unpacking the moving boxes, my husband told me he wanted a divorce. After thir…

John Malone writes: "It wasn't until we began sailing in weekend races at the Pymatuning Yacht Club and won the handicap trophy that Papa stopped trying to be in control and let me handle the boat my way. We were notorious for having loud argume…

Jo Freeman writes,  "What began with a bang is ending with a whimper. But the groups that organized the Iraq invasion protests aren’t going out of business; they're expanding their agenda."

Roberta McReynolds writes: Mom withdrew into a prison of continuous sorrow, leaving her surviving young child isolated in a world lacking the nurturing and affection I needed to thrive. A full circle of generational grief had been completed and anoth…

Joan L. Cannon writes: "We have more words than most other modern languages. Of course we don’t need to know them all and couldn’t use them all (though I think Nabokov may have tried). Yet, that richness makes maximum precision almost always poss…

Julia Sneden writes: "Perhaps it's human nature to look around and wish for something you don't have. The alternative would lend to a kind of smugness that is at the very least unattractive, and at the most, would lead to a kind of stasis. If th…

Jo Freeman reviews Women Making America, covering women’s history from the Revolution to the present day. Chock full of colorful images, it swoops high and low, sometimes mapping the forest and sometimes looking at a tree.

Tam Gray writes: "Tennis Ball lettuce, Moon and Stars watermelon and Telephone peas in 1943; Ernest's garden in Garden City, LI; the First Lady's kale, shallots and fennel and a culinary historian's theory, ""The more democratic our Pre…

Rose Mula writes, "No one who has ever heard it can forget the poignant, Passau du tempu ca Berta filava, or "The time for Bertha to weave is ended,” roughly equivalent to “Make hay while the sun shines,” but probably means that synthetic fib…

Kristin Nord writes: Drifters, gamblers, adventurers, dreamers and an astonishing roster of wildlife. This is the last great frontier, to a great extent, and it lives up to that billing with its unfolding stories.

The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry should appeal to all readers of literary fiction; Roseanne McNulty's story becomes an alternative, secret, history of Ireland. Henry Alford is witty and literate, but somehow he has allowed his talents to be diff…

The Private Patient by Baroness P.D. James holds our interest by the discovery of not just the who-dun-it, but the complex motives behind the actions. Anyone who loves dogs and brilliant descriptive writing will find Sawtelle rewarding. Wallace Stegne…

Jo Freeman writes, " I did have my Obama moment. It was late at night on a dark DC street, but I didn’t have to wait for hours in the cold, or be crushed by a crowd, or even buy a ticket."

John Malone writes: Born in a remote Ethiopian village, Amha had been sold by his father to a traveling trader, survived in the mean streets of Addis Ababa and now stood with his adopted father witnessing a historic event on the Mall.

Dermatologist Cynthia Bailey begins a quarterly column: If you give the skin a little extra attention in the winter and employ some simple tips, it will be as soft and hydrated as it is during the warmer and more humid weather of summer

Joan L. Cannon writes,  "Remember that your newfound cyber-pal has a life too. Don’t treat a new correspondent as though they already understand a) your family background, b) your phobias, c) your pet peeves, d) your most cherished dreams."

Jo Freeman writes:  African-Americans achieved a visibility at the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee not seen in the memory of anyone there, and perhaps not ever on the national level.

Diane Girard writes:There are pajamas I will not wear. I no longer buy the ones with critters on them. I have tried — but the animals disturbed me. I do not want to wear pink frilly nightwear either because then I feel silly, as if I’m stuck in a time warp at a pajama party.

Julia Sneden writes, "My spine has begun to collapse, and most cruelly of all, this is happening as my granddaughter is starting her adolescent growth spurt. Soon she will be kissing me on the top of the head and, worse yet, noticing that my p…