It is snowing like crazy today and I am glad to be home and not flying. Well, actually, there are more reasons than the snow that I am glad not to be flying.
So over the past week, I read the latest issue of The Missouri Review from cover to cover. I enjoyed it all but most of all I was taken with the essays “Song of Hypothermia” by Jason Anthony and “Home is Where the Heart Aches” by E.J. Levy. Both were wonderfully written and covered a similar sort of territory, stranger in a strange land, reflecting on past and present connections. Finding a balance between missing what is left behind and being in the moment.
I also read Liz Jones’s Diary, a Christmas present from my best friend, which is a funny, sad, often agonizing account of modern relationships. Jones is brutally honest in the examination of her relationship, pointing the lens on the couple’s peccadillos and petty arguments, and coming to the conclusion that despite the fact that she and her husband can both at times be annoying, they love each other and remain together. It’s a great, fast read.
I finished up reading Holiday Reinhorn’s short story collection Big Cats (which I got from my lovely friend, Kat. Thank you, friend!). On the whole, this is a wonderful, fresh, and funny collection. My favorite story is the title story in which two teenage girls fight for dominance in their tenuous and often sexually charged relationship.
Other than that I indulged myself by reading some trashy magazines on the plane–and loved every second of it.
myfanwy collins 