Author: Emily Sara Smucker
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The Death of a Beautiful Place
When people die we remember all the meaningful moments we had with them, even if we didn’t know them well, and when beautiful places die we do the same thing. As the horrible Eagle Creek fire destroys the Columbia River Gorge, I remember the last time I was there, and what I felt, and how meaningful…
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August 2017 Life Update
As I close out August, I thought I’d do a quick post with a few updates on my life. My Poor Computer The internet on my little laptop is not working at all, EXCEPT Youtube works. And Google. But not Gmail. So, needless to say, being limited to the family computer and my little iPhoney…
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Bookweek Day 6: Some Final Thoughts
Thought 1: Well, you all have convinced me. I have, once again, started The Scarlet Pimpernel. I am currently 3 chapters in and very confused as to the exact political beliefs of the various men in the bar. But I’m powering on, regardless. Thought 2: Hamlet just does not have the rabid fan base that…
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Bookweek Day 5: The exclusive club of true bookworms.
When I was a kid, I noticed a lot of weird tropes in the books I read. Like, the author would say “grown-ups don’t understand X,Y, and Z,” when the book was obviously written by a grown-up. Characters would say “this is just like something that would happen in a book!” when, duh, they were…
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Bookweek Day 4: Should you finish reading a boring book just because it’s a classic?
I’ve started a lot of books that I never finished. In general, I feel zero guilt about this. There are so many great books in the world to read, so why waste time on the boring ones? But there are a few books, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and Hamlet, that I do feel guilty about.…
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Bookweek Day 2: On Reading Diaries
This is my current collection of other people’s diaries. I find them at garage sales sometimes. It’s absolutely fascinating to me what makes people choose to write down one thing and not another. A diary must be the closest thing to glimpsing the actual inside of a person’s brain. Mostly, I’ve found, people write down…
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Bookweek Day 1: On Katherine Patterson, and layers of meaning in Children’s books
I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve been reading an assortment of books, so why not make this week a book week? We’ll see if it lasts six days or five days or just today. I’m not usually much of a nonfiction reader, but I’m discovering that nonfiction books by your favorite fiction writers…
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Island Lake
The Oregon summer is like a magical rope that slowly pulls people west: the harvest workers, my dear cousin Stephy, Janessa-of-tiny-houses-and-life-advice-fame, and most recently, the delightful shining light that is Sarah Beth. Of course, being the shining light that she is, she has about 75 people that want to hang out with her every time…
The Girl in the Red Rubber Boots 