If you cry during reruns of Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this and the other four titles in the "beloved Mitford series." This is the kind of reading that diehard nonfiction readers scoff at: too soft, too sweet. But don't we all deserve to be touched by an angel once in a while? The Mitford series centers on Father Tim, an aging priest who ministers to the small by lively congregation of the Lord's Chapel. He is by turns fussy, funny, and faithful (the kind of faith that is simply there, not overdone, just a part of daily life). And Karon's gift as a writer is that she allows his story to unfold. We discover the characters and the subplots without the heavy hand of a writer who wants to ensure that we "get the message," and we're delighted in the process. Even if your usual bedtime fare is A Brief History of Time, I encourage you to visit this little town for a while. You'll come away enriched.

If you cry during reruns of Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this and the other four titles in the "beloved Mitford series." This is the kind of reading that diehard nonfiction readers scoff at: too soft, too sweet. But don't we all deserve to be touched by an angel once in a while? The Mitford series centers on Father Tim, an aging priest who ministers to the small by lively congregation of the Lord's Chapel. He is by turns fussy, funny, and faithful (the kind of faith that is simply there, not overdone, just a part of daily life). And Karon's gift as a writer is that she allows his story to unfold. We discover the characters and the subplots without the heavy hand of a writer who wants to ensure that we "get the message," and we're delighted in the process. Even if your usual bedtime fare is A Brief History of Time, I encourage you to visit this little town for a while. You'll come away enriched.

If you cry during reruns of Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this and the other four titles in the "beloved Mitford series." This is the kind of reading that diehard nonfiction readers scoff at: too soft, too sweet. But don't we all deserve to be touched by an angel once in a while? The Mitford series centers on Father Tim, an aging priest who ministers to the small by lively congregation of the Lord's Chapel. He is by turns fussy, funny, and faithful (the kind of faith that is simply there, not overdone, just a part of daily life). And Karon's gift as a writer is that she allows his story to unfold. We discover the characters and the subplots without the heavy hand of a writer who wants to ensure that we "get the message," and we're delighted in the process. Even if your usual bedtime fare is A Brief History of Time, I encourage you to visit this little town for a while. You'll come away enriched.

If you cry during reruns of Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this and the other four titles in the "beloved Mitford series." This is the kind of reading that diehard nonfiction readers scoff at: too soft, too sweet. But don't we all deserve to be touched by an angel once in a while? The Mitford series centers on Father Tim, an aging priest who ministers to the small by lively congregation of the Lord's Chapel. He is by turns fussy, funny, and faithful (the kind of faith that is simply there, not overdone, just a part of daily life). And Karon's gift as a writer is that she allows his story to unfold. We discover the characters and the subplots without the heavy hand of a writer who wants to ensure that we "get the message," and we're delighted in the process. Even if your usual bedtime fare is A Brief History of Time, I encourage you to visit this little town for a while. You'll come away enriched.

If you cry during reruns of Little House on the Prairie, you'll love this and the other four titles in the "beloved Mitford series." This is the kind of reading that diehard nonfiction readers scoff at: too soft, too sweet. But don't we all deserve to be touched by an angel once in a while? The Mitford series centers on Father Tim, an aging priest who ministers to the small by lively congregation of the Lord's Chapel. He is by turns fussy, funny, and faithful (the kind of faith that is simply there, not overdone, just a part of daily life). And Karon's gift as a writer is that she allows his story to unfold. We discover the characters and the subplots without the heavy hand of a writer who wants to ensure that we "get the message," and we're delighted in the process. Even if your usual bedtime fare is A Brief History of Time, I encourage you to visit this little town for a while. You'll come away enriched.

What an education! Not since my love affair with Tom Wolfe's stuff have I learned so many pithy phrases and such wonderful jargon. This is a world in which space and time can be measured in meaningful handshakes, in which muffins work for pols, and scorps can make or break you, and in which a campaign isn't just swept clean, it's dust-busted. I laughed out loud for the first of many times when the candidate, Governor Jack Stanton, was described as being "in heavy listening mode, the most aggressive listening the world has ever known: aerobic listening." And I had to love the narrator, Henry, who, like me, hates books with broken spines: "I was willing to endure personal discomfort to maintain the integrity of a spine." Without giving it all away, Stanton is a candidate who has it all - charm, looks, a "touch" with the people, and a taste for Dunkin' Donuts, Fat Willie's barbecue, and Fat Willie's... well, that would be giving too much away. Read the book. As Henry puts it, "This was, if you could stand back from it, a wonderfully intricate game."

This is the story of Joe and Lou and their days in Linda Manor, and it is a story of growing old. Kidder juxtaposes the wrenching images of residents struggling with dementia and rapidly failing health with those of residents reaching out to one another in new friendships and coming to terms with their pasts. He deals frankly with the disadvantages of even the finest nursing home care: under-staffing, lack of empathy for residents, loneliness, and even lousy food. And he doesn't hesitate to acknowledge the imminence of death in such places. But, ultimately, this isn't a sad or depressing book. Joe and Lou accept that death is close, but they also learn to reconcile who they've been with who they've become. They find comfort and joy in their friendship, and their conversations provoke more smiles and quiet chuckles than tears. A topic that could have been rendered maudlin by another writer becomes an engaging treatment in Kidder's prose.

Zombie repulsed me. The narrator, Quentin P., is loathsome, sick. But in Oates' hands, the brutal serial killer becomes someone we almost know. Oates plunges us into Quentin's world and forces us to acknowledge that his madness is not without its own twisted logic. You see, all Quentin wants is someone in his life he can love and control completely. Zombie's horror is not so much in what Quentin does, but in how he recounts it: He describes his crimes the way my son might talk about his day at school. Zombie is short and taut, more like the novels Oates pens under her pseudonym, Rosamond Smith, than like her longer works. Gruesome, yes, but a compelling read.

In this unofficial treatise for the homeschooling movement, John Holt, longtime private school teacher, maintains that the traditional classroom model no longer works and may, in fact, ruin kids for learning. He exhorts parents to challenge the conventional wisdom and be their children's teachers. You don't need to be a homeschooler to benefit from Holt's books; you simply need to care about children and education and to have uttered, if only once, "There's got to be a better way."

Children's books are big, dry sticks poking around the nearly dead fire of adult imagination: They can ignite us. The best literature from children's shelves speaks volumes to grown-ups, and none more than Charlotte's Web. We adults need to be reminded that "[i]t isn't often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer." Who in our lives has been both? This is one book from your youth that begs to be revisited. E.B. White was an American treasure.