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From top dog to underdog: Why I’m pulling for Barnes & Noble
Recent B&N acquisitions Not too long ago, Barnes & Noble was a big bad bully of the bookselling industry, pushing indie bookshops out of business across the country and swallowing up...
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Dreaming of spring training
Baseball season approaches! Meanwhile, if you’re wondering what the sidewalks look like in many residential areas of Boston, here’s one from my ‘hood. I snapped the photo on Sunday night, walking home...
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If you’ve got some time to kill…
As some of you know, I’ve been writing a professional blog, Minding the Workplace, for over six years. A lot of the material is heavier stuff, looking at employee relations, workplace bullying,...
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Bowing to my middlebrow appetite: Give me a good diner any day
Silver Diner, Reston, Virginia (Photo: DY) When it comes to food, my tastes are distinctly middlebrow. Fancy French meals? Nah. Pricey steakhouses? Ok, but I don’t crave them. A place setting with...
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Throwback Thursday: Discovering Jack Finney’s “Time and Again”
You may have to be a bookworm to fully appreciate a soggy, nostalgic Throwback Thursday post about, well, reading a book, but here it is: About 30 years ago, I discovered Jack Finney’s Time and Again...
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Once upon a time, in a New York City not too far in the future…
From sujsokol.com I just finished a terrific novel, Su Sokol’s Cycling to Asylum (2014), described by the author as “the story of a family that flees a near-future New York City and crosses the border...
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Old standards about great cities
A wonderful 1980s Book-of-the-Month Club music collection, Songs of New York In my not-so-humble opinion, what separates a truly iconic city from many other fine places is that the great 20th century...
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When crime novels, espionage thrillers, and mysteries connect us to favorite...
I just reread a book that I first encountered some 20 years ago, Don Winslow’s A Cool Breeze on the Underground (1991). Winslow has established himself as an entertaining, edgy writer of crime and...
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Brooklyn, 1985
In a New York Times real estate section piece last week, Alison Gregor spotlighted beautiful Brooklyn Heights. While I enjoyed the photos of this picturesque, historic neighborhood, what caused me to...
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Latest binge view: “The Knick” (season one)
Last weekend I plowed through the ten episode first season of The Knick, a Cinemax drama set in a fictitious Manhattan hospital during the early 1900s. It stars Clive Owen as Dr. John Thackeray, a...
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Lost traditions: The Sunday newspaper
Not too long ago, a popular Sunday tradition was spending a good chunk of the day reading through the Sunday editions of the daily newspapers. Millions experienced the tactile delight of opening up a...
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Temporary escapism: NYC teens are discovering “Friends”
New York Times writer Ginia Bellafante reports that New York City teens have discovered the popular 1990s sitcom “Friends.” A big reason for its draw is its portrayal of the relatively carefree lives...
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Nostalgia for a New York experienced and occasionally imagined
Awaiting the okay to board, South Station, Boston (Photo: DY) My annual Thanksgiving pilgrimage to New York included a traditional feast with family and friends and a lot of walking around to absorb...
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Big Apple ghosts
Flatiron Building, 23rd Street, Manhattan (photo: DY) Of all the places I have lived for long stretches of time — Northwest Indiana, New York City, and Boston — the Big Apple has made the deepest,...
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A view from the Garden
This 1940s wartime era photo prompts a nostalgic moment for me, even if I wasn’t around back then and my soggy sentiments have nothing to do with the picture itself. This is the old Madison Square...
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Who you gonna call?
Dan Ackroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Bill Murray visit with Jimmy Kimmel It’s hard to believe that “Ghostbusters” is 32 years old as of this summer! And with the remake of the movie (and a new,...
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A quick trip to Brooklyn: A meet-up of past and present
Home to the First Unitarian Congregational Society, Brooklyn. During a quick visit to Brooklyn for a workshop related to my work, I didn’t expect that a nostalgia trip would be part of the deal. But it...
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A nostalgic afternoon in Manhattan
Yet another photo of the split pea soup at the Cozy…4 stars! (photo: DY) Over the years I’ve learned quite well that I am a creature of (1) nostalgia; (2) habit; and (3) cities. All of these came...
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Early winter binge viewing
The combination of a cold and some holiday downtime has led to a lot of binge viewing during the past couple of a weeks, and the televised rewards have been substantial. Here’s what I’ve been binging:...
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The Manhattan diner: 24/7/168
Tara Isabella Burton, in a feature for The Economist’s 1843 magazine last year, serves up a human interest story on an iconic Manhattan institution, the 24-hour diner: Londoners have their pubs....
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