I was sitting in my living room when I heard the blast. There was a deep jolt and the house shook. I felt a shock of fear, but my housemates knew immediately what it was, and where. The word "bomb" was not part of my vernacular, not yet, but I...

It's pure coincidence that I taught Nadine Gordimer's luminous, difficult Burger's Daughter during Banned Books Week this year. Banned in South Africa immediately upon its 1979 publication in the UK, Gordimer's novel is a fictional portrait of the daughter of white anti-apartheid activist Lionel Burger, who...

I wasn't sure we would make it: a two-week road trip from the San Francisco Bay Area to San Diego and back. For me, this was a welcome break from meal planning, marketing, cooking, and cleaning up. But we have a nine-year-old daughter and six-year-old son, and while they're generally...

The day my son, Finn, turned five, he dedicated himself to the art of the brick. That part of his brain formerly devoted to cars and coloring books and kicking balls, unit blocks and UFOs and sneaking cookies was, in one short day, rewired by the glacial beauty of those...

The sign strapped to the end of the canvasser's table should have tipped me off. But as my daughter and I approached the post office I only glanced at it--just in case the two women behind the table wanted to start a conversation or ask for money. It was spring,...