Top 5 and Why: Current Fatherhood Books
1. The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Tell Your Family History, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More Bruce Feiler’s “Secrets” tops our…
Be Honest and Unmerciful: Philip Seymour’s All-Time Scenes Top 5 and Why
This is a special Top 5, equipped with a Top 5 right behind. In other words, this could have easily been a Top 10, but no…
Top 5 and Why: Best Bob Dylan Songs
If a song moves you, that’s all that’s important… I don’t have to know what a song means. All Top 5 and Whys are tough, but…
Top 5 and Why: Jack Black
Thomas Jacob “Jack” Black is where it’s at. He’s funny, a better singer than you might think, and has morphed into a gifted character-actor as well. He has…
To Build a Private Pirate Snowman: On Dreams and Parenting
It was just past the New Year and only three days in to the second half of the school year, and wham: Snow in Chattanooga. Beautiful on…
5 Takeaways from ‘Daily Rituals’: Serious Creatives and How They Make it Happen
“It’s no easy business to be simple.” Gustave Flaubert had a terrible time keeping his life and art simple in the ways he wanted them. Of…
A Bigger Picture: Claudio Saunt’s More Complete View of America in 1776
I just happened across an impressive interactive time map showing the loss of native American land year by year since 1776. It’s enthralling to stop the rapid progression…
Charles Wright: The Poet Laureate without a Program
“History handles our past like spoiled fruit.” If you haven’t discovered Charles Wright until now, he’s a great choice for U.S. poet laureate, and as an…
Extra Lives: Tom Bissell on Why Video Games Matter
“Are video games a worthy way to spend my time?” Tom Bissell’s journalistic, slightly nerdish quest to discover what is great and not-so-great about videogames and…
Italo Calvino Reading from Invisible Cities
Invisible Cities is Calvino at his thematic and structural best. For more about this amazing book check out his Top 5 and Why. The following excerpt was recorded…
hanging chad 