Arts & Culture
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Travel journalist Robin Catalano snapping a photo of a glacier just before sunset in southern Iceland.[/caption]
This is the Arts & Culture page.
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Book Review: Maude by Donna Mabry
Maude, a novelized biography of the Donna Mabry’s paternal grandmother, is neither beautifully written or groundbreaking. But it is a memorable page turner about the captivating story of a girl forced into adulthood during a tumultuous period in time – the beginning of the 20th century through to the 60s. It’s not a fine piece of literature because flowing descriptions and self soliloquies are not the language of Maude, who became a wife and mother before turning 15, but what it lacks in style, it makes up for with feeling. Written by her granddaughter Donna, who is featured in the later years of Maude’s life, the story shows the hardship…
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Book Review: Amazing Grace Adams
Amazing Grace Adams by Fran Littlewood. I finished this book in one day and wish it hadn’t been a debut novel so I can read more of Littlewood. 45-year-old linguist Grace walks/stumbles/fights her way across London to bring her estranged 16-year-old daughter a birthday cake. With each step forward, Grace takes us a step back in time to how this estrangement occurred. Amazing Grace Adams reminds us that mothers are neither saints or sinner; simply and profoundly human. 272 pages; published 2023 by Henry Holt and Co.
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Not So Scary Ways to Celebrate Halloween
By Louise Want to be scared this Halloween? Simply turn on a 24-hours news channel or log on to social media. Perhaps it’s my age, or more likely my addiction to listening to paranoia-inducing true crime podcasts, but gone are the days when I sought the cheap thrills of a strange man jumping out at me with a chainsaw at a seasonal rural haunted house. Did I say cheap? Those places are rather expensive these days. Want to enjoy the festivities of Halloween without the fear? Here are our suggestions: 1. The Incredible Naumkeag Pumpkin Show always lives up to its name with a spectacular nighttime outdoor display of 1500+ pumpkin masterpieces.…
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The tiny northeast state with a big personality
I’m back at it again, searching for the best, the undiscovered, and the many dropped r’s of my Yankee youth in my beloved, weird home state: Rhode Island. Both heartachingly beautiful and different-drummer quirky, it’s the smallest of the United States and one of its most underestimated. While you weren’t looking, Rhode Island has created experiences so wide-ranging that you can loaf on the beach, commune with spirits in a haunted cemetery, dine at an Indigenous restaurant, and watch a woman juggle fire on the prow of a river gondola—all over the course of a single vacation. Plan your trip with my Rhode Island guide for Going.
