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Ludwig van Beethoven

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.

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Ludwig van Beethoven

Og Mandino

Treasure the love you have received above all. It will survive long after your gold and good health have vanished.

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Og Mandino

Wiley Cash, author of When Ghosts Come Home

When the roar of a low-flying plane awakens him in the middle of the night, Sheriff Winston Barnes knows something strange is happening at the nearby airfield on the coast of North Carolina. But nothing can prepare him for what he finds: a large airplane has crash-landed and is now sitting sideways on the runway, and there are no signs of a pilot or cargo. When the body of a local man is discovered --- shot dead and lying on the grass near the crash site --- Winston begins a murder investigation that will change the course of his life and the fate of the community that he has sworn to protect.

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Colm Tóibín, author of The Magician

In a stunning marriage of research and imagination, Colm Tóibín explores the heart and mind of a writer whose gift is unparalleled and whose life is driven by a need to belong and the anguish of illicit desire. THE MAGICIAN is an intimate, astonishingly complex portrait of Thomas Mann, his magnificent and complex wife Katia, and the times in which they lived --- the First World War, the rise of Hitler, World War II, the Cold War and exile. This is a man and a family fiercely engaged by the world, profoundly flawed and unforgettable.

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Mel Brooks

Good taste is the enemy of comedy.

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Mel Brooks

Mary Roach, author of Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

What’s to be done about a jaywalking moose? A bear caught breaking and entering? A murderous tree? Three hundred years ago, animals that broke the law would be assigned legal representation and put on trial. These days, as Mary Roach discovers, the answers are best found not in jurisprudence but in science: the curious science of human-wildlife conflict, a discipline at the crossroads of human behavior and wildlife biology. Combining little-known forensic science and conservation genetics with a motley cast of laser scarecrows, langur impersonators and trespassing squirrels, Roach reveals as much about humanity as about nature’s lawbreakers.

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Richard Powers, author of Bewilderment

The astrobiologist Theo Byrne searches for life throughout the cosmos while single-handedly raising his unusual nine-year-old, Robin, following the death of his wife. Robin is a warm, kind boy who spends hours painting elaborate pictures of endangered animals. He’s also about to be expelled from third grade for smashing his friend in the face. As his son grows more troubled, Theo hopes to keep him off psychoactive drugs. He learns of an experimental neurofeedback treatment to bolster Robin’s emotional control, one that involves training the boy on the recorded patterns of his mother’s brain.

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Alice Feeney, author of Rock Paper Scissors

Things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife. Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts --- paper, cotton, pottery, tin --- and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

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Liane Moriarty, author of Apples Never Fall

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. But after 50 years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable? One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted. Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide.

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September 24, 2021

I have been working from home since March 12, 2020, and Tuesday was the FIRST day I thought, I should work outside. I have a table out there, and great places to sit and read and work, but I have just not done it.

And as I was sitting there, I was feeling guilty that I was not at my desk while I was doing the SAME THINGS that I would be doing INSIDE at my desk. I mean, I feel guilty going to the UPS store downtown to pick up the company mail! If I was still working in New York, I would not fret about leaving my office to pick up lunch or do an errand. But here at the house, I feel like I just roll from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep. I keep saying that it’s all good things...just a lot of them!

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