Do you have a favorite number? (I don’t …)

Mom sure did. She loved the number four. And so when I saw this was TooMuchBrudders Blog Post Number 444, it was time to pause.

Mom was born in April, the fourth month. She married Dad on the fourth of November, 1952. She had four children.

For the heck of it, I looked up the number 444. According to Dictionary.com, it’s an “angel number,” with lots of positive attributes attached.

Checking in Mom’s writing archives, the number 444 turns out to be part of an important address:

That’s right, the street address of Mom’s high school was 444 Orange Street. I did not use any photo filters, this is the color of their school paper – not orange, though, but beautifully aged newsprint.

Another four? That’s how many books I read this month:

Book 1: Maeve’s Times by Maeve Binchy

This is the second Binchy book I’ve read. It’s a compilation of the best of her Irish Times newspaper columns, decade by decade.

Maeve’s light-hearted, wickedly funny style reminds me of the much-missed local newspaper editor Grace Marshall Brown, who also preceded me as editor of Pizza Today magazine in the 1980s. She, too, could turn a phrase.

Book 2: The Mermaid’s Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

Should I recommend The Mermaid’s Chair as a beach read? If you’re intrigued by the idea of mid-life crises reminiscent of The Thorn Birds, this should be at the top of your stack.

This was a quick and easy read, but not my favorite by the author.

Book 3: The Trial by Franz Kafka

Didn’t I declare I was done with dystopian novels? Well, I’ll say it louder this time.

Creepy storyline about an arrest and trial (and more) without a word of explanation why. (Sound familiar?)

Kafka wrote The Trial in 1914 and 1915. It was published posthumously in 1925. Here we are a full century later. Did someone mistake this for an instruction manual?

Book 4: A Delayed Life by Dita Kraus

Dita was born in 1929, just like Anne Frank. But unlike Anne, Dita somehow survived.

God bless her, she’s still alive!

Each memoir from the Holocaust tells a different story. Dita’s struggles and strength are remarkable.

The “true story” subtitle took me a while to catch. There’s a historical novel with that name that can be controversial; it’s fiction based partly on conversations with Dita.

I’m glad Dita decided to have her own say.

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Today is the final day of June. Six years retired, am I. With 444 stories shared and lots more on the way.

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