I was late getting started. I hit the snooze alarm, couldn’t get the shower when I wanted it, found aphids and powdery mildew on my roses, and took a moment…
Backpacking Bucks Lake Wilderness (Again)
Last year I attempted a loop that goes from Bucks Lake Staging Area to Spanish Peak, down to Rock Lake for a night, then on to Bucks Lake for a…
The Jackson Brodie Series, Kate Atkinson — Part 3
I started the 5th and final Jackson Brodie, Big Sky, in bed in rainy Berkeley, but read most of in a completely different world, on the beach in Mexico. It…
“Poacher” by me
Recently, a short story I wrote appeared in Spillwords, an online journal whose aim is not to curate selectively, but to present each piece its best light, to its own…
Backpacking Desolation Wilderness
Desolation is one of the most accessible–and popular–wilderness areas in California. The landscape, with it’s trail of clear glacial lakes, iconic granite slabs, thick twisted trees, and mercurial weather makes…
Backpacking Shenandoah National Park
At the tail end of a recent business trip I took a few extra days for a section hike in Shenandoah National Park. A couple of years ago I reviewed…
The Jackson Brodie Series, Kate Atkinson – Part 2
I finished Case Histories, the first novel in Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie series, crouched between cars on a sweltering train traveling from Cambridge to Edinburgh. That’s the same train Jackson…
The Jackson Brodie Series, Kate Atkinson – Part 1
Or–the special joy of reading a book set in the place where you are Last month, I took a trip that included a visit to my company’s UK offices in…
Backpacking Bucks Lake Wilderness
One day after summer solstice I took a short backpacking trip into the Bucks Lake Wilderness, following the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) from Bucks Summit to Spanish Peak, then taking…
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
In the first chapter of The Marriage Plot, an elderly Brown English professor lays out a theory– “The great epics sang of war, the novel of marriage. Sexual equality, good…