Brief Encounters

I like good writing. I like essays. This book - and the series of which it is part - satisfies both of these "likes."

In Brief Encounters: A Collection of Contemporary Nonfiction, editors Judith Kitchen and Dinah Lenney have gathered together some of the best recent short nonfiction - essays, reflections, pieces that border on poetry.

One of the nicest things about it is the variety. The writers deal with all sorts of issues and concerns in a variety of ways. Memories. Art. Mortality. Family. Travel. Nature. Illness. If you don't like one piece, turn a page or two and you will find something completely different that might appeal to you.

While I like the vast majority of the pieces, a few were not to my taste due to the writers having to make unnecessary sex related comments or using foul language - but fortunately these were the exceptions.

I already read the first in the series of such collections Kitchen helped to compile - In Short - and plan to read more of the collections.

Pax et bonum