It Still Astounds Me, After Forty Years,

A Bookstore Is One Of The Few Places Where All The Cantankerous, Conflicting, Alluring Voices Of The World Co-exist In Peace And Order And The Avid Reader Is As Free As A Person Can Possibly Be, Because She Is Free To Choose Among Them.

The Only Siblings I Have Are Half-siblings. My Nuclear Family Would Have Been An Extra-suffocating Threesome. Instead, I Have An Interesting Brother And Sister, In-laws, And Darling Nephews.

Like Most Of The Educated, I Do Harbor A Fondness For The Sins Of My Ignorant Past.

The Fact Is That The Same Sequence Of Days Can Arrange Themselves Into A Number Of Different Stories.

I Spent Part Of My College Years In A Marxist Commune. I Was Not A Marxist. I Wasn't Even Pretending To Be One. I Was A Marxist-in-law.