Authors

Joan L. Cannon writes: Did you ever notice the inverse proportions of our lives that seem to be dependent on our ages? The changing importance of common segments of time, of course, are most obvious, perhaps — like a decade seeming half way to forever when you’re fourteen, and about like a week when you’re seventy. During our middle years, we often wish only to expand our horizons — all of them. Then along comes the evidence that whether we like it or not, those horizons are drawing closer to us instead of receding. more »

Ferida Wolff writes: We visited a Cuban cooperative organic farm. The land is still state-owned but the produce can be sold privately. We ate in a few paladars, small, privately owned restaurants located in homes. What we found was a resourceful culture, friendly people, and music that enlivens everything. more »

Rose Madeline Mula writes: We’ve all heard stories from the old folks of how they used to be beside themselves with joy if they found so much as an orange, instead of a lump of coal, in their Christmas stockings. Today it’s not so easy to please a kid. Unless the eight-foot tree is completely hidden behind a pile of bionic, electronic, computerized, overautomated and overpriced toys that cost more than you used to have to spend to furnish an entire house (real, not doll), they start reading you their Constitutional rights. more »

Jill Norgren writes, This holiday season you may be thinking, iTUNES, or video games, or clothes. My grandgirls suggest that whatever your choices, let there be a book among them. I particularly appreciate that most of the titles they have suggested are available in inexpensive paper editions. And more than a few are books that I would enjoy stealing off with for an hour or two. more »