Richard Ford was born on this day in 1944. Ford's novels and stories feature a gallery of outside-looking-in heroes, as suggested by an encompassing comment in his 1981 novel The Ultimate Good Luck: "Everyone is marginal." Based on his autobiographical f

The Old Miami Bar might work. The badges on the wall, the black-and-white photos, the sofas around the pool table that look like customers brought them from home. That could be a scene. Maybe something from a neighborhood, too, with a lovingly tended hou

Proposed changes to mental health services in Brighton and Hove prompted an outburst from a former carer who now sits as a councillor. Dawn Barnett said that she had been left in tears as she tried to help a distressed constituent. She raised the case of

Strike: the New York Giants batting against the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1952. Both teams feature in the opening set piece of Don DeLillo’s novel 'Underworld' (1997) In the summer of 2006, I spent six weeks in Germany on assignment to write about the World Cu

Richard Ford at the Durham Republican Party web site has some wise words about the effort to put some ballot security in the voter-registration and voting system. He points out something that the media, the NAACP, the Left, and the state’s Democratic off

Afine-looking western just rode into town from up North, and you’d best take notice if you know what’s good for you. The Canadian writer Guy Vanderhaeghe has been publishing best-sellers and winning national awards for decades, but American readers have