January 2019 – Liza Achilles

two women sitting on a rooftop in Detroit, Michigan

Book Previews

Help

January 30, 2019 by Liza Achilles 6 Comments

The urge to help others is very much a part of being human. There are so many ways to serve others. Maybe you help people as part of your job, in your family or social groups, or by volunteering time or donating money. Maybe you have reached out to someone who seemed down and out. All of those acts are...

Reading time: 1 min

birds flying over snow in front of a building in Istanbul, Turkey

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Hope Is the Thing

January 28, 2019 by Liza Achilles 10 Comments

If you are a writer, you are probably familiar with Anne Lamott, as she is a hero among writers. If you are not familiar with Anne Lamott, let me introduce her to you. She has a gift for homing in on the nuances of spirituality, anxiety, love, and other topics of great pertinence to our interior selves. Among writers, she...

Reading time: 1 min

low bed with rumpled covers and art in modernist room

Incidental Musings

Dreams

January 25, 2019 by Liza Achilles 8 Comments

I am interested to know about your dreams. Tell me about your dreams. Did you dream last night? Can you recall a long, harrowing sequence of events? Or just a feeling you retained upon waking? Did you dream of specific people? People you see in your current life? People you knew in childhood? Have you had any particularly powerful dreams...

Reading time: 3 min

Tales

The Inquisitive One Visits the Town Square

January 23, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments

Around noon on Tuesday, having nothing better to do, the inquisitive one drove to the little skating rink in the town square and parked in the garage. After gathering up the hockey skates in the back seat, the inquisitive one walked to the rink. But the skating rink, the inquisitive one saw, was packed with people! Some were racing one...

Reading time: 3 min

Incidental Musings

Technological Mysteries (Part 1)

January 21, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments

I would like to discuss with you a modern problem, one that has the potential to strain relationships, upset family members, destroy old friendships, prevent new friendships, and restrict opportunities of all kinds. All this, you say? Yes, the potential for all this, I say. What is this potentially destructive modern problem? you ask. Let me explain through a story,...

Reading time: 2 min

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For Those Who Prefer Motorcycling

January 18, 2019 by Liza Achilles 5 Comments

If, on the other hand, you felt more inclined to travel by motorcycle four days ago—this post is for you. Bruce Springsteen’s song “Born to Run” definitely isn’t about strapping on your running shoes—the thought makes me bust out laughing! No—it’s about “suicide machines,” and the narrator is “a scared and lonely rider,” who’s thinking, “we gotta get out while...

Reading time: 1 min

running through a forest on a snowy trail

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For Those Who Prefer Running

January 16, 2019 by Liza Achilles 7 Comments

If, two days ago, you felt more inclined to travel by foot—this post is for you. I’m a travel-by-foot person, myself. I’ve been running since I discovered the sport in my late teens. By the time I hit my early twenties, however, I was experiencing intermittent knee pain. A serendipitous conversation with a doctor caused me to suspect that I...

Reading time: 5 min

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Born for It

January 14, 2019 by Liza Achilles 7 Comments

Would you rather travel this road by motorcycle or foot? Either way, you might enjoy a book called Born to Run. . . . That is, you might enjoy one of two books, both called Born to Run. It’s amazing that, when Bruce Springsteen wanted to, for some reason, only seven years after the book Born to Run by Christopher...

Reading time: 2 min

Tales

The Inquisitive One Revises the Resolution

January 11, 2019 by Liza Achilles 3 Comments

On New Year’s Day, the inquisitive one sat down with a brand new pad of paper and brand new pen, both received as gifts the previous month. The inquisitive one thought very seriously for a few minutes, biting softly on a thumb. Then suddenly, the inquisitive one removed the thumb from the mouth, picked up the pen, and wrote a...

Reading time: 3 min

Two photos. First is of Louis XVI drawing room with brasses and brocatelle. Second is of ugly ceiling of old dark factory warehouse room.

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Brocatelle and Asphyxia

January 9, 2019 by Liza Achilles 6 Comments

One thing Émile Zola handles particularly well in his novel The Ladies’ Paradise is contrast. The existence or absence of contrast in a novel is, in fact, a pretty good indicator of quality. After all, it is only in relation to other things that we are able to perceive anything with any degree of accuracy or understanding. Can we fully...

Reading time: 1 min

News & Events

Baby’s First Byline

January 7, 2019 by Liza Achilles 6 Comments

I know, I know—we were in the middle of a series of posts about Émile Zola’s The Ladies’ Paradise, but I’d like to hit pause on that to share some exciting news with you all: I have acquired my first byline! So, apologies, but you will have to live in suspense as regards the nineteenth-century novel I was previewing—it’s a...

Reading time: 2 min

French fashion of the late 1800s, vintage costume, hats, Parisian women, France in the Victorian Age

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Womankind From All Angles

January 4, 2019 by Liza Achilles 2 Comments

Just as the illustrator of these Parisian women of the late 1800s wearing fashionable hats did a brilliant job of capturing the nuanced variety of the attire, Émile Zola did a brilliant job of capturing nuances of the nineteenth-century female experience in his novel The Ladies’ Paradise. Moreover, as in his descriptions of large versus small businesses, the themes he...

Reading time: 1 min

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Crushing the Little Guys

January 2, 2019 by Liza Achilles 4 Comments

Thanks to Masterpiece on PBS, I recently discovered and read an incredibly good novel. Written and set approximately 150 years ago, in the late 1800s, the book is about—as far as I can tell—Amazon.com. But let me explain. I was browsing through my local brick-and-mortar book store, which fortunately still existed at that moment in time, for that was where...

Reading time: 2 min

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A blog for readers and thinkers.

Help

Hope Is the Thing

Dreams

The Inquisitive One Visits the Town Square

Technological Mysteries (Part 1)

For Those Who Prefer Motorcycling

For Those Who Prefer Running

Born for It

The Inquisitive One Revises the Resolution

Brocatelle and Asphyxia

Baby’s First Byline

Womankind From All Angles

Crushing the Little Guys

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