"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Reading List: Chlorine Gardens

I don’t have much time today (it was bound to happen) but I can still throw something out there as part of the reading list. We’re almost there. Tomorrow is Human Rights Day.

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Chlorine Gardens
by Keiler Roberts

Dealing with pregnancy, child-rearing, art-making, mental illness, and an MS diagnosis, the parts of Chlorine Gardens’ sum sound heavy, but Keiler Roberts’ gift is the deft drollness in which she presents life’s darker moments. She doesn’t whistle past graveyards, but rather finds the punch line in the pitiful.

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“If the Good Lord made me bipolar on purpose, it must be because he’s (she’s? they’re?) bipolar. That’s the only way to explain how consistently great and terrible His creations are. Now that I’ve figured that out, maybe I do believe in God. I can imagine creating cancer on my darkest day, and then the Grand Canyon to make up for it.”

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Advent Calendar

Marjorie Bowen — Raw Material

Linley was fond of collecting what he called “raw material” and, as a fairly successful barrister, he had good opportunity for doing so. He despised novelists and romancists, yet one day he hoped to become one of these gentry himself, hence his collection of the

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December 13, 2025 9:00 am
books and literature

Return from the Stars

Though I think I get what Lem was trying to do with this novel, I also understand the many people whose reaction has been “what the fuck did I just read?” The novel is about alienation, social estrangement, post-traumatic stress and culture shock, which are

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December 12, 2025 9:00 am
Advent Calendar

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman — A Discovered Pearl

“Wonder what’s goin’ on in the church?” Gilman Marlow stopped and stared slowly over at the church. It was a little white building with five pointed windows on each side. The windows were all streaming with light now, and the bright light showed from the

Read More »
December 12, 2025 9:00 am
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Marjorie Bowen — Raw Material

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