It was May, 1985, and the author, a professor at the University of Rochester, was grading papers “with the usual sense of futility” (as he recalled in a letter to his father) when he noticed that the sentence through which he was... Read More

Divorce is often more painful than loss of a spouse through death, according to the author, because divorce usually entails rejection while death rarely does. For women with children, mourning the loss of a husband who splits can be... Read More

Hotbed of feminism, or exclusive male retreat? Dependent on cerebrations and fact, or awash in sloppy sentimentality? A combination of extremes? Just what is science fiction from women’s point of view? Isaac Asimov and other icons have... Read More

Whether or not one verbalizes a like or dislike of opera, everyone, according to the author, has been “raised culturally on something very close to opera”—the movies. Elements of opera are evident in a wide variety of films,... Read More

While ice cream in various forms can be traced back to ancient Rome, it was really Thomas Jefferson who made it our “national dessert,” says the author in this ode to frozen dairy treats. Americans eat more ice cream per capita than... Read More

“It is better to spend three years searching for the best instructor than to train for ten years under an ineffective one.“ With this wisdom gleaned from a Chinese text on Kung Fu, the author summarizes one of the most important... Read More

Some of John Keats’s letters are nearly as well known, at least among scholars and professors, as his “Ode on a Grecian Urn.” Ideas like “negative capability” (“when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries,... Read More

“There are just two things you have to do when you are very unhappy, and you must do one or the other. Get down to work, or do something for someone else.” This was writer Iris Origo’s take on life, as explained to her youngest... Read More