Nowadays anyone with a crap laptop and an Internet connection can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be.

Metz's Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one woman's climb back to happiness after not just a spouse's death, but also the shocking recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for having survived to recount it.

But hard bitten cynicism leaves one feeling peevish, and too much of it can do lasting damage to your heart.

You can never have too much, butter.

Maybe I needed to make like a potato, winnow myself down, be part of something that was not easy, just simple.

Nowadays anyone with a crap laptop and an Internet connection can sound their barbaric yawp, whatever it may be.

Doors are going to open-doors you can't even imagine exist.