life, travel, stories – Join the journey, Love Raven
Dear Reader, Domestic abuse comes in all forms, yet U.S. law and popular culture primarily focus on physical violence that men have committed against women. While this description of abuse is prevalent and serious, it does not encapsulate the problem. What is missing from this narrative, however, is the wide spectrum of abuse including emotional,... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, If you are married to someone who has cheated on you, you may harbor hope deep down in your heart that your partner will change. If you are married to someone who is suffering from an addiction, you will do anything in your power to help your partner get help and recover. However,... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Have you heard of Madame Bovary? If not, the internet will inform you that Gustave Flaubert’s 1856 work is actually one of the ‘greatest novels of all time.’ Intrigued, I decided to read an English translation of the French work and I must say, I’m not sure what all the hype is about.... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, There are some books so compelling that you think about them even when you are not engrossed in their pages and long after you close them for good. Unfortunately, I don’t think this would be a very accurate description of the book The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule. That was harsh, and,... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, In August 1992, a brutal 11-day FBI siege on a private family home near Naples, Idaho, leaving 3 dead and two wounded, shocked the country. This incident, now known as Ruby Ridge, resulted from a failed ambush that was intended to facilitate the arrest of Randy Weaver for a variety of offenses including... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, Have you ever dissuaded yourself from reading a book because you found it to be too popular? For me, this is where my hesitancy lie when I was considering Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia. Despite near universal praise for this story, the premise of a... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, I am convinced that Americans (and more specifically Hollywood) invented the concept of a happy ending. I have studied both Russian and German and each language uses the English phrase “happy end” to describe a story or a movie that ends happily – as if ending well is a foreign concept. I recently... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, It is deeply unsettling to learn that the person that you have come to know and call a friend is nothing more than an illusion. When Rachel DeLoache Williams went on what she thought was an all-expenses-paid vacation with her friends, Anna, Casey, and Jesse, to Morocco, she did not expect that this... Continue Reading →
Dear Reader, In stark contrast to the last book that I read Maid (review here), I recently finished Primates of Park Avenue: A Memoir by Wednesday Martin, which exposes the “mommy culture” of the wealthy residents of the Upper East Side in Manhattan. The title is in reference to the author’s background in anthropology and... Continue Reading →
Dear, Reader It is often the case that after death the deceased is held in higher regard than he was while living. Yet rarely is anyone upraised to the status of legend. This, however, is how many view the wise-beyond-his-years and gone-before-his-time Chris McCandless. Maybe we are captivated by him for his unshakable resolve, propensity... Continue Reading →
Curious Words Blog 