Reading Aloud to Seniors: Top 10 Tips by Lucy E.M. Black Several years ago, when a family member was hospitalized and in a great deal of pain, I was striving to find something that would comfort her. In desperation, I picked up a Gideon Bible and began to read aloud from the Psalms. Occasionally she Read more
Two Favorite Books of 2019 by Jude Joseph Lovell ’Tis the season for year-end lists! Picking up on a new “tradition” I started last year in these pages, and as someone with a passion for reading and writing about books, I now offer my favorite nonfiction and fiction titles from those I read in 2019. Read more
Bruce Springsteen Born to Be You Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell American music legend Bruce Springsteen turns 70 years old on September 23. This prompted me to pick up his 2016 memoir, Born to Run. The book is a magnificent, colorful, unruly story of an epic, valley-to-the-mountaintop life in performance. Reportedly, Springsteen wrote every Read more
Indie Author Day: Grow Your Creative Community By Angie Littlefield This year’s Indie Author Day will be held on Saturday, October 12. Because that day is also Canadian Thanksgiving, my local library in Pickering, Ontario, will host its event a week earlier, on Oct 5. Graphic designer, photographer, and webmistress Mary Cook and I are the Read more
As the Crow Flies Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell In a recent, good-natured debate I had with my brother-in-law about books, he let me know that he didn’t care for a novel I had recommended. There were too many open-ended questions at the end of the story, he explained. “I don’t like that,” he Read more
The Cathedral of Imagination by Jude Joseph Lovell We all watched as the images came across our laptops, our TV screens, and our phones on April 15—the great cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris engulfed in catastrophic fire. I can’t speak for others, but the horror that seemed to claw out of my gut and climb Read more
Things Visible and Invisible Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell Imagine finally meeting the love of your life—realizing you have found what only happens once in a lifetime—only to become separated by a time and distance. The question becomes: How far would you go to get the one you love back? It’s a well-worn theme, Read more
The Citadel Within Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell Someone very special to me was recently hospitalized after exhibiting symptoms consistent with congestive heart failure. We learned later that there had been no “cardiac event” after all—the heart in question was responding to attacks of anxiety and depression. Only about a week later, I saw Read more
Customer Service and the Decline of Civilization By Johanne R. Deschamps I got my first real job at the age of fourteen, working in a family run bakery/coffee shop. The bakery was new to the area and I was trained by the matriarch of the family in the appropriate way to serve customers. “Always greet Read more
Build the Grid Book review by Jude Joseph Lovell The Old Testament’s Book of Sirach instructs us to take care of our fathers when they grow old. For the millions in the “sandwich generation,” the near future will bring a great abundance of opportunity to do exactly this, if we are not doing so already. Read more
