I had a craving for fresh mint. I wanted to toss it with sliced oranges, knead it into meatballs and steep it for tea, even though January is not mint’s time. The supermarket had it in little plastic packages, skimpy and half-dead. So I set out in search of a local nursery with mint plants. […]

There have been plenty of beloved adaptations of Stephen King’s writing. “The Shining,” “Stand By Me,” “Shawshank Redemption,” “Misery” and “Carrie” are just a few of the acclaimed movies based on his books and stories. These titles have something else in common too. King had nothing to do with their transition from page to screen. […]

After our story about readers’ experiences with mice in their homes was published last Sunday on page B1, we heard from more readers, including Peggy Libby. This one was too cute to not share. “About seven years ago my cat killed a mouse in the middle of the night. It wasn’t an unusual event, so I […]

It took me a month to say Andree Kehn’s first name correctly – no matter how many times she corrected me. (It’s on-DRAY-ah in case you’re wondering.) It only took a matter of minutes, on the other hand, before I was able to surmise that this wedding photographer is definitely cut out for news photography. We […]

On the wall in our living room hangs a painting my husband, Steve, and I brought home from Ireland six months ago. It’s a picture of flowers and the ocean and would be lovely to look at if the picture hanger didn’t show above the top. I could ask Steve to fix it, but I’m […]

Novelist Isabel Allende is 73 years old and newly single. Allende – author of “The House of the Spirits” and 20 other books that often explore love, family and history – wrote her latest novel, “The Japanese Lover,” while her 27-year marriage was ending. “I was in the process of deciding if I should stay […]

Over the past few weeks and months (and years, really) there have been a series of essays/think pieces about the growing irrelevance or uselessness of Twitter. Google “quitting Twitter” and you’ll find stories about intellectual luminaries as varied as Salman Rushdie and Lena Dunham either quitting Twitter or thinking about quitting Twitter or quitting Twitter […]