Coming from Counterpoint, 10/9/18. Read an excerpt here.

9/5/18: Early report from the empty nest: September column on Baltimore Fishbowl.

9/5/18: The first media sighting for Baltimore Book of the Dead. Pub date is October 9th but pre-orders are welcome. That's the IndieBound link; it's on Amazon too, of course. Tour schedule here.

9/15/18: Looking for a good book? New Weekly Reader episodes here. Recent topics include Muslim Family Values, Asia Food, Black Authors Old and New, No I Won't Grow Up. Why not sign up for the podcast?

9/15/18: This was forwarded to me by friends who read it in the staff recommendations section of the newsletter of the Three Lives bookstore, and what a wonderful surprise coming out of the blue. She had graduated from the same university as I, though ten or so years earlier, and returned to campus to read from her memoir at the bookstore where I oversaw events. Twenty-plus years later, I am reviewing titles to be released this fall and see Marion Winik has a new book due out from Counterpoint in October, The Baltimore Book of the Dead. Apparently this new book is a follow-up to her book from 2010, The Glen Rock Book of the Dead (Counterpoint). Odd, I think, I don’t recall this earlier book at all. I am intrigued by the premise of both books, collections of brief biographies of people in Winik’s life who have died, and order in a copy of the early collection to read now. A slim, small-trimmed paperback that actually fits in my back pocket arrives, and I take it on a holiday to the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, where I read it on a deck surrounded entirely by trees, not a view to speak of, only trees and the sun cutting through the cool morning air. I read the collection in one sitting, and when I finish, I immediately put pen to paper and write a letter to a dear friend, telling her how much I loved this book and how much I thought of her, or, rather, thought of our friendship, our conversations filled with the glory and pain and wonder and humor and poignancy of life and our world. The Glen Rock Book of the Dead is a special book: Marion Winik offers the reader a celebration of life and death that packs far more power than expected from such a slender read. – Toby

Browse the Bohemian Rhapsody archive — running since 2011 on Baltimore Fishbowl.

Marion's "Lives" columns for The New York Times Magazine: "Grand Theft Litho" and "A Mother of A Certain Age".

An archive of Marion's commentaries for All Things Considered.

Lots more essays and articles in the links archive and work archive.

Listen live Wednesdays at 2:33 pm, or play the podcast anytime at The Weekly Reader. Buy the books from our local sponsor, the Ivy Bookshop.

All content ©2009 Marion Winik

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