It’s another one of those unremarkable winter afternoons when the outside temp is identical to the inside of my refrigerator, the sky is as gray as a friar’s habit, and the wind has just enough of a whistle to sting an old man’s cheeks.

This year, the women’s basketball team of Christendom College, a small school in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, includes a forward, Catherine Thomas, who has averaged 27.7 points and 14.8 rebounds per game. Those are outstanding percentages in any league, no matter its size.

One way to enjoy winter is to read about someone who lives north of the Arctic Circle. It’s never going to be that cold here, is the idea.

“Appalachia can give us an eye towards how the national personality refracts like a diamond into a thousand rays” — Imani Perry 

This was a fine morning in the coffee shop.

Samuel Clemens, best known by his penname Mark Twain, is arguably the master of American novelists, with his great classic “Huckleberry Finn” along with such stories as “Tom Sawyer,” “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court,”and “The Gilded Age.”

It’s 1969-1970, and the world is changing at a fierce pace. The civil rights movement grips America’s cultural arena, and the war in Vietnam is raging. 

Writers of fiction find themselves under several obligations. First and perhaps foremost, they must entertain their readers, enticing them to keep turning the pages. Doing so means creating believable characters who must get past some challenging hurdles, whether those involve love, war, nature, or other obstacles.

“If there is magic on the planet, it is contained in water.” — Loren Eiseley

It’s not often that one finds a book that is both sensibly spiritual and a very fun read. But such was the case on my reading of Jaimal Yogis’ coming-of-age, non-fiction memoir “Saltwater Buddha” (Wisdom Publications, 2009, 238 pages). 

Whatever our political beliefs or affiliations, few of us, I suspect, will look back on 2022 with pangs of nostalgia, at least in regard to events in our country at large.