Tuesday June has opened in Sewanee, Tennessee with four gorgeous days so I’m sharing one of Pooh’s nature poems. A. A. Milne’s self-deprecating poet describes sensory input blending together in a moment of pure bliss. Happy Summer! Oh, the butterflies are flying, Now the winter days are dying, And the primroses are trying To be […]
We can learn from Eeyore to be more forgiving of our public servants.
Proust and James Joyce were particularly important in helping Alison Bechdel negotiate her complex relations with her father.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alison Bechdel, Autobiography, Catcher in the Rye, Colette, Fun House, homosexuality, Importance of Being Earnest, J. D. Salinger, James and the Giant Peach, James Joyce, lesbianism, Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde, Remembrance of Things Past, Roald Dahl, Ulysses | Books about books give readers a sense that they are part of a larger community.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield, E. Nesbit, Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Kenneth Grahame, metafiction, Northanger Abbey, Treasure Seekers, wind in the willows, Would Be Goods | My father is dying. One of his last acts was to find an A. A. Milne passage about Sewanee’s incessant rain for the local newspaper.
As I have been writing about fathers and sons in the past few posts, I shift today from my position of father to that of son and to the literary origins of my name. My father named me after Christopher Robin and recently told me that he envisioned having the kind of relationship with […]
“I am Peter Pan,” Michael Jackson reportedly once said, and of course he chose to name his ranch Neverland. In this second of my two posts marking Jackson’s death, I thought I would reflect upon why J. M. Barrie’s fictional creation meant so much to him. Peter Pan: The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alice in Wonderland, Annabelle Lee, Edgar Allen Poe, Francis Hodgson Burnett, innocence, J. M. Barrie, Lewis Carroll, Michael Jackson, Peter Pan, Secret Garden, Vladimir Nabokov | William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alexander Dumas, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, C.S. Lewis, Cecil Day-Lewis, children's books, E. Nesbitt, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Freddy the Pig, George MacDonald, Hardy Boys, Homer, Iliad, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Jungle Books, Just So Stories, Knights of King Midas, Lewis Carroll, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lost World, Mistress Masham's Repose, Narnia Chronicles, Otterbury Incident, Paul Berna, Rudyard Kipling, Scarlet Pimpernel, summer reading, T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret Garden, Three Musketeers, Treasure Seekers, William Kristof, Would Be Goods | 
