Is it just me, or does there seem to be a wave of "intersecting lives" novels lately? I'm talking about novels which are structured around characters and place and which move forward episodically, rather than via a driving, suspenseful plot, a genre which is also sometimes called "a novel in stories." Two of the most decorated books of recent years fall into this category: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout and Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann. Other recent entries include A Short History of Women by Kate Walbert, Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon, and the forthcoming The Madonnas of Echo Park by Brando Skyhorse.

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In my oral history book The Last Leaf: Voices of History's Last-Known Survivors, I interviewed over three dozen final eyewitnesses to, or last participants in, historically important events.  All of the "Last Leaves" were octogenarians, nonagenarians or even centenarians.  Their longevity is remarkable considering the average lifespan of an American born in 1900 was less than fifty.  The Last Leaves have defied great actuarial odds.  Readers often ask me, "What is the secret to their longevity?"  The answer is simple – activity, both physical and mental.

For example, the famous entertainer Kitty Carlisle Hart, the final lead performer in a Marx Brothers movie, told me, "I gave a concert on my 94th birthday, and am already booked for my 95th...I've been singing all over the country recently...Soon, I go to Palm Beach for a two week engagement."  Colonel Norman Vaughan was the last man to travel to Antarctica with Admiral Richard Byrd in 1929.  He participated in the grueling Iditarod dog sled race until he was 87.  For his 89th birthday, he climbed the 10,302 foot Mount Vaughan (named for him by Byrd) in Antarctica, and was planning for a return visit on his 100th birthday when he died.  "I'm proving that centenarians can still do great things," he noted.  The 104 year old Hal Prieste, the world's oldest Olympian (he won a diving bronze at the 1920 Games), continued his daily exercise routine.  In 2000, he flew twenty hours to Australia for the Sydney Olympics.  Frank Buckles, America's last World War I soldier, recently turned 109.  He kept a bucket of dumbbells by his chair and refused all assistance when walking.  "I'll do it myself," he told me.  "I gave up driving tractors and cars when I turned 102."

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In her poem "The Miser," Ruth Padel describes a young Charles Darwin's predilection for collecting and classifying objects as a way to make "like Orpheus, a system against loss." One could say the same for the biography/memoir-in-verse, a dynamic form that allows poets to revisit the lives of their subjects through imagery, rhythm, and metaphor instead of the more rigid bounds of chronology that biographers must follow. Considering that biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs usually make a strong showing on bestseller lists, the poetic analogues to these forms deserve a wider audience and also provide an ideal introduction to newcomers wishing to dip a tentative toe into the rushing waters of poetry.

Books and documentaries about the Lewis and Clark Expedition have proven popular in recent years, but Campbell McGrath opens a new window onto this famous duo in Shannon: A Poem of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, by focusing on one of its lesser-known figures: George Shannon, an 18-year-old expedition member who became lost from the group for sixteen days. Shannon himself kept no record of what happened during his accidental sojourn on the prairie (present-day Nebraska and South Dakota), so McGrath has free reign to re-create the young explorer's shifting emotions when confronted by the immensity of the wilderness. Implementing the perfect blend of high and low diction, McGrath captures Shannon's voice without strain or pretension in a series of free verse poems, one for each day spent wandering.

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Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare are considered to be two of the greatest writers in the history of world literature, and not only were they contemporaries, but they died on the same day - April 23rd, 1616. In Catalonia, an autonomous region in NE Spain, April 23rd is celebrated as both the Day of the Book (in honor of Shakespeare and Cervantes) and the Day of the Rose because it is the day we celebrate the patron saint of Catalonia, Sant Jordi (see previous post for more about this).

Please join me on a photo tour of Barcelona on this special day.....

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What do Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare have in common? They are considered to be two of the greatest writers in the history of world literature and, not only were they contemporaries, but they died on the same day - April 23rd, 1616, which is recognized in Catalonia, an autonomous region in NE Spain, as the Day of the Book.

In Catalonia, April 23rd is also the Day of the Rose because it is the day we celebrate the patron saint of Catalonia, Sant Jordi. The story goes that as the dying dragon's blood touched the earth, a red rose appeared which Sant Jordi then presented to his rescued princess. Sound a bit like St. George? You're right, because St. George is Sant Jordi in the Catalan language.

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In bleak midwinter 2002, I moved to rural Lancashire, in northern England, an incongruous place for an American expat. The first months were so oppressively dark, I felt I was trapped inside some claustrophobic gothic novel. But then came spring in a tide of bluebells and hawthorn. The wild Pennine landscape cast its spell on me.

I live at the foot of Pendle Hill, famous throughout the world as the place where George Fox received his vision that moved him to found the Quaker religion in 1652. But Pendle is also steeped in its legends of the Lancashire Witches.

In 1612, seven women and two men from Pendle Forest were hanged for witchcraft. The most notorious of the accused, Bess Southerns, aka Old Demdike, cheated the hangman by dying in prison. This is how Thomas Potts describes her in The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster:

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