Monthly Archives: May 2024 | Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Color of the Sky | We were in California this past week where from time to time Jerry and I go for neuropathy treatments for me that...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
A Good Look at an Old Evil | The title of this column plays off my first book, A Good Look at Evil. There I revisited some of the main...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Gang's All Here | In honor of the new year, I’ve been catching up by phone with some of the friendships that have lasted for the long...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Remembrances | When people are no longer present to each other, or able – in an unforced way – to walk in and out of each other’s days...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Monthly Archives: August 2025 | Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Fork in the Road | A realization visited me the other day. It had to do with lost friendships. I’d always pictured these...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
When I’ve talked about the need to defend one’s story, I’ve had in mind my experience that ill-wishers can show astonishing astuteness in picking out key elements of the life project or story they choose to attack, even before the … Continue reading →| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
In my passage from childhood to young girlhood, there were two stories I relied on for clues about the life that lay ahead of me. The first was Homer’s Odyssey. The second was Joseph and His Brothers (from Genesis 37-50) … Continue reading →| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Meanings of Our Lives People commit suicide when their lives seem to them meaningless. At least, that’s been my experience, which I’ll share with you. I’ve talked two women friends out of killing themselves, which they seemed quite serious … Continue reading →| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
The Story | “The crucial thing is the story.” That is what I claim in A Good Look at Evil, my book which holds that the person who...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Monthly Archives: July 2025 | Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Reincarnation: Anne Frank and Me | Some years back I read a book with the title, And the Wolves Howled: Fragments of Two Lifetimes...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
Confessions of a Young Philosopher by Abigail L. Rosenthal | A spiritual and philosophical memoir of a young Jewish woman in postwar Paris.| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
What Is Truth? | The question, famously put to Jesus by Pontius Pilate, was prompted by Jesus’ self-report that he had come to bear witness...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column
A Writer's Conscience | I just finished reading – actually skimming – what I’m tempted to name as the worst book in the history of the...| Dear Abbie: The Non-Advice Column