Bern, books, and by-the-way
My Favorite Fiction of 2025
Last January was the first time I wrote about my favorite books of the year, and now I’m doing it again for 2025. I didn’t experience as many reading highlights this year as I did in 2024, but I’ve still had fun thinking back and picking out which novels I could barely wait to get…
The Patron Saint of Children
Yesterday, December 6, was the day of Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children and the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a Byzantine city in what is now Turkey. On this day, many Swiss-German households with young children are visited by “Samichlaus,” as Sankt Nichlaus is pronounced in the Swiss-German dialect. He doesn’t arrive in the…
BEFORE THE LEAVES FALL
Over two percent of Switzerland’s nine million people belong to EXIT, one of the nine or ten organizations in Switzerland that offer people who don’t want to live anymore a painless way to commit suicide. Since 1942, Swiss law has permitted one person to assist another to commit suicide as long as the motive for…
My Fall Fling
It’s October 29, but the plants in the window boxes hanging from the railings of my balcony are still bravely blooming. As fall has progressed, my twenty-two geraniums have produced steadily fewer purply-pink flowers. Only a scattering of the bright clusters still remains. The blue stalks of sage on either side of the geraniums stand…
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Kim Hays 