The lovely long shot at the start of 45 Years (2015) shows Kate Mercer (Charlotte Rampling) walking her Alsatian in early spring fog along a lane bordered by a line…
Since early summer, children and families falling through holes in the safety net have kept reporters busy in Massachusetts and Vermont. Neglect and murder, the horror stories never end. Nor…
Last week, fire gutted the Century Inn in Scenery Hill, Washington County, Pennsylvania. Built between 1788 and 1794, it was still serving great country cooking three years ago when I…
The Conference on Sustainable, Responsible, Impact Investing marked its 25th anniversary this month. Few conferences can claim justly to have changed their field – in this case, financial services –…
A year ago, on Oct. 16, 2013, Brian Sweetland died when he fell as he walked his dogs. A wonderful exhibit at the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester…
Two movies you mustn’t miss this Christmas: ‘The Great Beauty’ (‘La Grande Bellezza’) and ‘Nebraska’. Superficially the two have much in common. Both take men late in…
Yellowed newspapers and old readers reveal what preceding generations thought important, what shaped our ancestors’ perceptions and ours. At a farm auction in 1958 when I was 12, I found…
Rarely, one comes to a novel from watching a movie based on it. Even more rarely does a very faithful movie – a superb film – lead to…
Few books read once in adolescence made as permanent an impression on me as Frank Norris’s novel, The Octopus: A Story of California (1901). Wheat farmers squeezed into…