Author Archives: beckyajohnson
Can We Place a Price Tag on the Value of an Education?
The question “is higher education worth it?” has received considerable media attention lately, partly because of the recently released book Is College Worth It?: A Former United States Secretary of Education and a Liberal Arts Graduate Expose the Broken Promise … Continue reading
Salvage the Bones Book Review
The 2011 National Book Award Winner for Fiction (U.S.), Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward tells the story of the Batiste family, a poor, Black family living in a rural community near the Mississippi Gulf Coast. A first-person narrative told from … Continue reading
The Alchemist Book Review
Although it was first published in 1988 and has become one of the best-selling novels of all time, I only recently learned of The Alchemist, written by Brazilian author Paulo Coelho. This 174-page allegorical story of an Andalusian shepherd, who … Continue reading
Portland’s 4T Trail
For my birthday this year, my husband vowed to take a day off from writing and go with me on an adventure of my choosing. Since nice weather was in the forecast after a long rainy spell, I opted to … Continue reading
Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper Book Review
Recently I joined a book club that focuses on food-related books. For my first meeting I read Fuchsia Dunlop’s 2008 memoir Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China. Fuchsia Dunlop is somewhat the Julia Child … Continue reading
Becky A. Johnson 