I mean to say,

I mean to say, really, I am near to developing a neurosis – is there anyone around who doesn’t want to study or kill me? Floote raised a tentative hand. Ah, yes, thank you, Floote. There is also Mrs Tunstell, madam, he offered hopefully, is if Ivy were some kind of consolation prize. I notice … Read more

I rode horseback three

I rode horseback three miles each way to get to high school, and in bad weather it was a problem sometimes to make my eight o’clock class on time. Like others, I often missed school to help on the farm, especially in the fall, until after harvest, and in the spring, during planting season. Ezra … Read more

It was a heavenly

It was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in … Read more

All good books are

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you: the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places … Read more