I never read Barbara Kingsolver before. Her most famous novel about an oppressive Protestant preacher in the Congo sounds soporific. But I’m reading her recent novel Demon Copperhead, and it’s good enough to cancel New Year’s. Really good. Crisis literature type of book.

Was I wrong to be prejudiced against her before?

Think about what an absolute moral pygmy one needs to be to see this and bleat pathetically about “Biden fighting to the last Ukrainian”:

We even have chicken Kyiv this time:

In 2022, I wrote 10,000 words less and read 20 new books fewer than in 2021. We all know why, so OK. My resolutions for 2023 are to bring the numbers back up and to change my daily routine completely. Not that there’s anything badly wrong with it now but it’s good to experiment.

Klara had gotten a Christmas gift at her school’s gift shop for our priest and then forgot what it was. All she knew was that it’s something that priests really needed.

Finally, she received a thank you note from the priest and I found out what the gift was. It turns out she’d gotten him a set of screwdrivers and flashlights.

“Why did you say it’s something that a priest really needs?” I asked.

“These screwdrivers had crosses engraved on them,” she explained. “Imagine if a priest had to use regular screwdrivers and flashlights, without crosses!”