Making Toast: Simple Gestures for Moving On, by Roger Rosenblatt

Life goes on. Writer Roger Rosenblatt's new book, Making Toast, is receiving wide acclaim for the sad yet forward-looking account of his daughter Amy's sudden death at age 38. She left three very young children, a hand surgeon husband, and a career as a pediatrician. Rosenblatt and his wife, Ginny, immediately moved to Bethesda to be with their son-in-law and grandchildren. Making Toast is an account of the year or so that followed and the expectation that more years will follow. NPR has a written and spoken review here. If the subject sounds familiar, it's because Rosenblatt wrote this for The New Yorker in December 2008.

Bethesda is closer to DC than Baltimore, but sometimes we need to expand our horizons. Which brings me to the question, how far afield should The Baltimore Bibliophile range? Annapolis, sure. Westminster, of course. Columbia, probably. But once we start to really get into the orbit of another city, it seems out of my sphere. I'm not going to review every Washingtonian's big book. Range is an issue I'll be considering, but for now, this one seemed right for a blog focused on Baltimore.