Read A Book A Week
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Carto’s Recent Posts
- Earthsea — Dragons and Wizards
- Flowers on Note Cards
- An Exhibition of Paintings by Monet
- Twisted — An Arizona garden in California
- The Thinker Waits
- Weathered — Church Bells in the Tower
- Favorites 2017 — Transition to Winter
- Transformation — Land’s End turns chilly
- Peek — Halloween in Palo Alto
- Stanford at Night
Carto’s Most Viewed Posts
- Téa Obreht—Tigers, Myths and Death Rites In The Balkans
- Curve — American Buckaroo in Action
- Awash in The Waves of Virginia Woolf
- Perry Mason—The Case of the 24th Sestina
- Illustrated Tales of Nations—German Cigarette Cards
- Max Headroom, Cyberpunk TV
- Carlos Fuentes—Author of The Doll Queen is dead at 83
- Zero To Hero — Donna Tartt spins a murder tale in Vermont
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Posts Organized by Category
Monthly Archives: July 2011
A Slavic Love Story: Hero and Leander Retold
Once upon a time, An overbearing father grounded his daughter Hero, a ripening young melon; he exiled her to a maiden’s tower on the edge of the water. But, that didn’t stop the willful virgin from seducing Leander, a gorgeous … Continue reading
Our Founders: How Did They Do It?
“We hold these truths to be self-evident”—this remarkable assertion begins the Declaration of Independence as written by the founders of our country in 1776 after considerable heated debate and 11th hour compromises on wording. Some few years later, in 1789, … Continue reading
Sorghum Justice: Murder and Vengeance in Mexico
As he enters the ripening sorghum field, Ramón sees an unclothed girl lying face down her own blood. He takes off his shirt to place it over the girl’s nakedness. He approaches closely: he recognizes her face; it is Adela his … Continue reading
The Whale—The Lure of the Sea
Wandering through the house with a heavy novel in my hand, I was looking at book shelves and now and then pulling a volume to read the opening lines—I was half way through my yearlong project of reading and re-reading … Continue reading
Summer on a Mid-western Horse Farm
Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley’s debut novel Barn Blind (1980) is an intimate look at a family in turmoil—Katy and Alex Karlson and their 4 teenage children operate Kate’s horse farm in the mid-west; they are caring for 40 thoroughbred … Continue reading
Harold Pinter: Tense Memory Play Recalls Old Times
There is no proscenium curtain at the Pigott Theater on the Stanford University Campus. The 200 or so seats in this intimate theater look directly onto the stage. When I attended the Summer Theater 2011 production of Harold Pinter’s Old … Continue reading
Looking Back: Vietnam and The Quiet American
Graham Green, author of The Quiet American, was a war correspondent stationed in Saigon, Vietnam during the final stages of the Indochina War pitting the French against the revolutionary forces of Ho Chi Minh. Green lived in Vietnam until the … Continue reading
Canons Reverberate in a Tiny Caribbean Harbor
The small colonial sailing vessel sailed up the roadstead towards anchorage in the harbor and readied her ceremonial cannons to fire a salute: White puffs of gun smoke over a turquoise sea followed by the boom of cannon rose from an … Continue reading
