I never liked Bach when I was growing up. I thought he was incredibly boring. I played a few Bach pieces (very simple ones) on the piano as I was taking lessons, and they were always some of my least favorite classical pieces I played. My 14-year-old self was pretty convinced that Bach was just…
With all the chaos going on right now, I’ve heard a lot of people say something along the lines, “Now is not the time to read apocalyptic fiction, or books about pandemics.” The idea being that when you’re going through something difficult, you don’t necessarily want to read about it (or watch a film about…
The title character of Jane Austen’s Emma is not exactly given many kind words by readers and critics. She’s described as selfish, entitled, spoiled, and unkind. And perhaps those characterizations are true, to some degree. I mean, Jane Austen, after writing Emma, even said she had created “a heroine whom no one but myself will much…
Well, this isn’t the kind of March madness I think any of us were expecting. Let’s recap the last week, shall we? A global pandemic. (No need to dwell on the details of that as I’m sure we’ve heard them reiterated to death. I’ll just add that as someone who falls into a high risk…