Welcome

Hi! My name is Margot. My blog is about the things I love to do. That could be what I'm reading, places we visit, my family, food, or whatever else is happening. I hope you'll stay and visit a while. Contact me by email: joyfullyretired (at) gmail (dot) com.

What I’m Reading

Saying It Well

Justice

Forever

The Sense of an Ending

Wish You Were Here

A Moveable Feast

Clarissa

The Odyssey

My Book Rating System

A = Excellent in every way
B = Very good story
C  = Good/Average
D = Poor
F = So Bad I couldn't finish it

Archives

Short Story: Brother Robber by Helene Christaller

I went looking for simple, classic short stories centered on the celebration of Christmas. I found a nice collection of them called Home For Christmas. Some of the stories from the collection are available for download at The Plough. One story in the collection is this one, a very old tale handed down through many [...]

Recalculating by Jennifer Weiner

Maureen, after thirty years of marriage, became a widow. Although Maureen believes no one else knows, she was abused from the very beginning of her marriage. Her husband abused her via severe pinching, threats, and abusive language. Even though he is gone, Maureen still feels his control, but she is slowly and quietly living her [...]

Short Story: Kindling by Raymond Carver

I read some Raymond Carver short stories back in the 1970s, I recall liking them. So when I went looking for them again, I learned there were a few stories published posthumously. I chose to read Kindling because it won the O’Henry Award for Short Stories in 1999. What I like about Raymond Carver’s stories [...]

Short Story: The Wagner Matinee by Willa Cather

Clark, a young man now studying in Boston, tells us about his Aunt Georgiana. The first half of Georgiana’s life centered around music. By her early twenties she was a music teacher trained better than most. Then she met X, fell in love and eloped. Because they had little money, they moved to Nebraska to [...]

Short Story Monday: The Hossack Murder

The first story I reviewed for Short Story Monday, back in January 2010, was a very clever story by Susan Glaspell. It was A Jury of Her Peers. I still remember how the story carefully unfolded and how the truth was only known by two of the women in the story and, of course, the [...]