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About Barbara
I’m Barbara Falconer Newhall and I’ve got a serious case of the human condition.
I’ve done it all: career, family, house, garden, and a prize-winning book, "Wrestling with God." The result: I'm a woman of years, lots of them, who can't help seeing things from the funny side.
Tucked away on this website are hundreds of riffs on life. I hope you’ll seek them out – and keep me company as I discover the humor, if not the meaning, in what life throws my way. Learn More
THE LATEST
Will I Still Be Loveable When I’ve Lost All My Marbles?
Ten years from now, when I’ve lost some — all? — of my marbles, will I still be loveable? Will I even be me? Read more.
BARBARA’S BOOK
★ Publishers Weekly, starred review
Any seeker of any faith will be blessed to read the words of this fine author and observer. Read more.
An inveterate doubter for most of her adult life, journalist Barbara Falconer Newhall embarks upon a quest to find a way to believe in God in the twenty-first century.
The result is Wrestling with God: Stories of Doubt and Faith, which details her search for the Divine in the lives of diverse Americans – from a fundamentalist Christian to a progressive Muslim to a Buddhist monk.Seekers of all persuasions will feel represented here, from priests, ministers, and rabbis to engineers, physicists, and avowed non-believers . . . a riverflow of a book. — Phil Cousineau, host of PBS’s Global Spirit
Recent Riffs on Life
A 1970s Counterculture Bash at Zodiac News Service. Were You There?
It was a 1970s counterculture bash at Zodiac News Service. If you were there, pls help ID these party-goer pix. (Be patient. Lots of photos to upload!) Read more.
Widowed: Archiving My Husband and Zodiac, His Scrappy 1970s News Service
Can you archive a dead spouse? Can you stash them away in a temperature-controlled academic repository, to be preserved for centuries? Read more.
DON’T MISS!
‘Dog Medicine’ — A Dog-Lover’s Journey From Depression to Health
I’m not crazy about dogs. But I am crazy about a book called “Dog Medicine.” (“Soulmates” photo by Heather Knape.) Read more.
I Brake for Floor Plans — I Like to See How Those Other People Live
It’s Sunday morning. I pull the New York Times Magazine from the fat stack of newspapers on the breakfast table, fully intending to read the informative, thought-provoking articles inside. But I get no farther than page two, because that’s where the real estate ads are – the ones with the floor plans. Read more.
In the Garden: Look What Happened to My Front Yard Over the Weekend
I wasn’t looking. I was at the computer all weekend with my back to the world. When I finally took a bleary look out the window Monday morning, I saw a front yard crazy with life — poppies, blue-eyed grass, armeria, pansies and several lascivious stalks of lupine blossoms. Read more.