Author Archive

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. An Unfinished Love Affair: a Personal History of the 1960’s by historian and biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin is the book I have been waiting for, and it doesn’t disappoint. It is an intimately told, stunningly impactful history of the…

The entry below is being cross-posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. The Lioness of Boston by Emily Franklin is a lush historical novel about Isabella Stewart Gardner, Belle of Boston, an upper class young woman who refused to limit herself to the cultural norms prescribed by the wealthy social elite of…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. If you think today’s headlines are bad, you’re right.  We’re dogged by the apparent philosophy of those in my lifelong profession: bad news is good news, and good news is no news at all. Just consider a…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Consider the plight of my friend, let’s call her Barbara. A widow, a vivacious, smart and active woman “of a certain age,” she found love again more than a decade ago with a widower. After a long…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney offers what could be an eye-opening look at how to talk to “the other.” It’s about much more than when every day becomes Thanksgiving Day…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein is a short, dense and intense meditation on what it means to be an outsider and a survivor. The first-person narrator speaks directly to the reader spinning the tale of how, as a…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. The October 7th Hamas terrorist attack on Israel was barbaric, gut-wrenching and a blatant violation of international law. For many, especially those whose extended families have been caught up in the terror, the attack was also deeply personal.…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I have some questions in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos are children. If they are, indeed, children, shouldn’t keeping them in freezers at some…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane  is as effective a thriller as his previous books, once again taking a deep dive into the social and political environment in South Boston, this time in the lead-up to the 1974 school busing…

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. The City of Newton’s shameful, illegal, and history-making 11-day teachers strike is over. Finally, Newton’s 12,000 school kids are back in class, where they belong. Those of us who have lived in Newton for a long time…