So much of Christmas is supposed to by happy, jolly and filled with thoughts of prancing reindeer that we often overlook the darker side of winter solstice. But if we think about it for a while we start to realize that Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is certainly a ghost story. The Nutcracker, especially E.T.A. Hoffman’s…
What exactly trigger’s Ebenezer Scrooge’s big transformation in A Christmas Carol? I always thought Scrooge’s change of heart came about when the spirit of Christmas-yet-to-come pointed a boney finger to Ebenezer’s grave. I may have been influenced in that respect by the Mr. Magoo version. Re-reading A Christmas Carol this year I noticed that the spirits themselves have little to do with Uncle Ebenezer’s big…
There’s nothing like a book to take you into different worlds, experience different lives and in the doing learn something about yourself. Here’s a list of offbeat books by some very worthwhile authors, including one who lives to chase animals: The wildly various stories in Running After Antelope are connected and illuminated by a singular…
