There’s a quiet kind of pride that doesn’t always show up in loud celebrations. Sometimes, it looks like staying. Sometimes, it looks like leaving.

As the author of “The Book Nook,” a syndicated column I wrote from 1977 to 2006, I met many interesting writers. One of them was Jay Quinn, who passed away without fanfare (except for an obituary in the Walker’s Funeral Home website) on July 28, 2025.

There are sports stories. There are love stories. And then — very rarely — there are stories that blur the line so completely that you forget which one you’re reading.

Trump’s domestic agenda is so dystopian it’s hard to believe. Unleashing masked goons onto U.S. streets, building concentration camps, punishing the media, threatening judges, and labeling critics “enemies of the state” all vie for his most Hitlerian maneuvers.