In the last issue of the e-​​​​news we solicited “Won­ders” in the form of sug­ges­tions as to day trips that SRI mem­bers would rec­om­mend to our readers.

We heard from Sue Hazlett with enthu­si­as­tic encour­age­ment for tak­ing the time to go to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass­a­chu­setts (a sug­ges­tion which gets hearty endorse­ment from…

Lloyd Jones:
Mister Pip

Sug­gested by Mary Lyon

Mary found Pip to be a com­pelling story of a girl who – caught in the throes of war on the island of Bougainville – man­ages to sur­vive helped by her beloved mother, by a wise teacher, and by Pip, Charles Dick­ens’ fic­tional creation.

• Buy Mis­ter Pip at Amazon

Geral­dine

…

1. You acci­den­tally enter your PIN on the microwave.

2. You haven’t played soli­taire with real cards in years.

3. You have a list of 15 phone num­bers to reach your fam­ily of three.

4. You e-​​​​mail the per­son who works at the desk next to you.

5. Your…

David Mitchell:
Cloud Atlas

Sug­gested by Rosemary Day

Cloud Atlas con­sists of six nested sto­ries that take us from the remote South Pacific in the nine­teenth cen­tury to a dis­tant, post-​​​​apocalyptic future. Each tale is revealed to be a story that is read (or watched) by the main char­ac­ter in the next. All sto­ries but the last one get inter­rupted at some…

Man­abu Taka­sawa at the piano (classical).

Praised for his “sen­si­tive touch” by The Wash­ing­ton Post and for his “beau­ti­ful sound with an abun­dant sense of fan­tasy” by Musica Nova mag­a­zine (Japan) pianist MANABU TAKASAWA made a solo recital debut at The <a class=“zem_slink” title=“John F. Kennedy Center…

Three years before that other colo­nial hero, Paul Revere, made his famous ride, a band of colonists from Paw­tuxet torched the British ship HMS Gaspee, mark­ing the very first armed con­flict of the Amer­i­can Rev­o­lu­tion.

The Annual Walk­ing Tour of His­toric Paw­tuxet Vil­lage is a his­tory chap­ter like no other. With…