JUST SAW a Twitter thing that says it all: “When something goes wrong in your life, just yell ‘PLOT TWIST’ and move on.” Do you have days when everything that can go wrong does? Mine started at 3:00 AM when the smoke alarm went off. Cold night. The woodstove chimney...

AS A CHILD, I read Elsie Dinsmore, the first of a series that rivaled Alcott’s Little Women and subsequent books. One day while re-reading it, I saw it with new eyes: an overtly Christian story about a young girl whose overbearing father seeks to turn her from her...

YOU KNOW YOU'VE READ A GOOD BOOK WHEN YOU TURN THE LAST PAGE AND FEEL A LITTLE AS IF YOU HAVE LOST A FRIEND.                          ~Paul Sweeney I know the feeling. Story can abduct us, hold us captive, and keep us in thrall for days after the cover is closed. How...

I JUST GOOGLED LARRY AND THE UNDERSEA RAIDER by Walter Farley, a book that one of my teachers read to her two classes. It probably didn’t have great literary value, but I’ve remembered that story—if not the setting. (I thought it was Norway. Turns out to be Hawaii,...

In the invasion of Italy, the danger spot was Salerno, where British troops landed in September, 1943. The Germans made a stubborn resistance and almost won the battle. “The day of the landing at Salerno and its sequel will always stand out in my memory,” said...