A Country Boy Can Surmise

There is so much good music and television, so many great books and films out there today that I can't possibly see/read/hear them all but of the books I've read this year, these are my favorites...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/12/favorite-books-of-2021.html

illustration by Gabriela Pesqueira I hope you will have time to read my new essay for the Ideas section of The Atlantic. A brief excerpt: "My own parents...cut corners so that they could h...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/08/common-good.html

First in a series of short essays based on photographs. This is my Great Uncle Dave's camping chair. He carried it to Dale Hollow Lake for almost fifty years, from when he first visited ther...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/06/heirloom.html

There's a moment in the new film The Dig that tore me down.  I don't want to give too much away, but it involves a line about a queen sailing through space on a ship.  The scene moved me so...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/transcendence.html

"The Dead" by James Joyce is one of my favorite pieces of writing to have ever been written.  A few years ago I was teaching the story in Ireland and it struck me that many of the issues bein...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/another-country-short-story.html

This year, especially:  Find a body of water, and be still beside it for a time. Build a fire and watch the flames. Sit on the porch. Lie on the grass. Light candles. Take a deep breath. Write ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/new-year-prayer.html

1. TIRED AND WEARY  The fourth Sunday of Advent meditates on peace. This sets me to thinking of all the ways the idea of peace has been given to me through music and literature throughout...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/it-is-well-fourth-sunday-of-advent.html

 Note:  I'll be sharing some thoughts every Sunday through Advent to help myself plow through this time of stillness when I so often love to go to church for the ceremony surrounding the waitin...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/blue-christmas-third-sunday-of-advent.html

Note:  I'll be sharing some thoughts every Sunday through Advent to help myself plow through this time of stillness when I so often love to go to church for the ceremony surrounding the waiting ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2020/12/wandering-shadows-second-sunday-of.html

The Great Mystery-First Sunday of Advent.   During this pandemic time when so many of us are unable to attend church because we want to protect others, Advent is more important than ever.  I...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2020/11/sunday-of-advent-great-mystery-during.html

Huge showers of red and yellow and green and blue and white exploded on the sky, blossoming like giant willow trees. The booms were huge and square-sounding, echoing several times down the hi...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2019/07/the-complications-of-freedom-short.html

This was in 1992. In the foreground is CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, who at the time was one of the most famous journalists in the world after narrating most of the Gulf War to us.  That’s me...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2019/04/no-one-can-make-you-feel-inferior.html

My quickly written but passionate thoughts about the Oscars. Rural Erasure, As Always As always, the films that portrayed rural people with dignity and complexity were overlooked almost comp...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2019/02/my-unsolicited-opinion-on-oscars.html

I read 36 books this year (not counting the books I read for blurbs, workshops, etc.). Someone told me yesterday that they don't read because they don't have time.  Only a nonreader would think...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/12/favorite-books-of-2018.html

Today I am doing the thirteenth stop on a book tour that is going to end up going to twenty different cities and two countries. Along the way I have often been asked about the influences on this ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/the-dragging-grains-influences-on.html

I'm in Knoxville for my third event on the book tour for my new novel, Southernmost.  More about that in a bit.  First, I want to tell you about looking out the window of my hotel and being was...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/book-tour-knoxville.html

Here are a few recent releases I've been loving lately.  And reasons why. 1.  If I Don't See Ya-Brent Cobb.  Reminds me of summers on the lake when I was in my early twenties, speeding down ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/05/end-of-may-music.html

A friend recently challenged me to post my ten favorite books on Facebook, one a day, for the next ten days.  I've decided to post them all in one fell swoop here so I can try to articulate...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/05/favorite-books-today.html

My June tour dates. The rest of summer will be announced later. Come see me please, or I’ll be lonesome. My June tour dates. The rest of summer will be announced later. Come see me please, or ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/04/june-tour-dates.html

  I think that Oscars shouldn't be for favorites but instead for great productions, great filmmaking, a great combination (especially the technical aspects) of all the best things that make m...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2018/03/you-hate-poor-people-and-other-things-i.html

The vast majority of books I read this year were not published this year, but I did read several 2017 releases.  You'll notice that hardly any of the books I absolutely loved received major awar...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/what-i-read-this-year.html

This has been a great year for music.  So much, in fact, that it's almost impossible to narrow it down to just a handful of great albums and songs.  That's why I've prepared a playlist with 75 ...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/best-music-of-2017.html

The March I was a year old, it rained for two weeks in the South. My mother tells me that she could never get my diapers dry because she couldn't hang them out on the clothesline (we didn't have...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-flood-then-and-now.html

When I think of summer songs, I think of songs that would be good for a day out on the lake, or a long bike ride, or while enjoying my own back yard.  Songs of summer tend to be more upbeat, lig...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2017/06/songs-of-summer-2017.html

January 28, 1986. We were out of school that day for snow. My best friend, Donna, and I were riding sleds off the strip mine across the road from my house.  My mother came out onto the porch a...

http://silashouseblog.blogspot.com/2017/01/evening-in-america-31-years-after.html