[ENews JANUARY 2021 WRITING AND BOOK NEWS: Let me know if you’d like to be added to this list of short items. Have you ever read a book and thrown it down in disgust when the final pages disappointed? A Washington Post writer mulls this question over in an article. I found some I’d read, and I don’t know if I agree. For instance, I couldn’t imagine Romeo and Juliet without their deaths, although these days of compulsory happy endings, it would have been different. See  https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/worst-book-endings/2020/10/17/e9d8635a-0ee3-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html ]

Superhuman achievements, extravagant wealth and grandiloquent language, political power or notoriety, or the external signs of success aren’t impressive. Instead, the wonder in the world around me, the respect I feel when an individual meets trouble with dignity and hard work, my amazement to learn of a small triumph in an everyday life motivate me.

My response isn’t unique. From a piece as banal yet charming as Flower Drum Song (“A Hundred Million Miracles”) to soul-stirring poems by Ranier Maria Rilke (“Duino Elgies”), we’re reminded how fleeting our existence and how valued our senses, experiences and thoughts should be.

So my writing and my blog explore these details with humor or praise, distaste or
disapproval, awe or loathing, both the highs and lows of incidents I run across, based on my own opinions. You’re welcome to comment, read, or respond if you’re so inclined.