{"id":903565,"date":"2026-11-02T19:48:10","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903565\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T19:48:10","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T19:48:10","slug":"an-essential-bear-for-older-readers-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/903565\/","title":{"rendered":"An essential bear for older readers | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">I\u2019m a little late to the table, I know (I\u2019ve been walking in the woods while my porridge was cooling), but I just wanted to make a small addition to readers\u2019 reflections on the fictional bears that have won their hearts (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2026\/oct\/23\/delving-into-the-subtext-of-winnie-the-pooh\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Letters, 23 October<\/a>). When I was a youngster, neither Winnie-the-Pooh nor Paddington Bear held that much appeal to me, but in my 40s I fell in love with a \u201cdeeply human sax-playing bear\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">I\u2019m referring to the hero of Rafi Zabor\u2019s The Bear Comes Home. It\u2019s a book about (among other things) music and improvisation, love, spiritual exploration and the hope of transcendence. It is most definitely not a book for children, but it is an overlooked gem. This bear should be introduced to more people.<br \/>\n <br \/>Phil Dawson<br \/>\n <br \/>Beeston, Nottinghamshire<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\"> Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/books\/2026\/nov\/02\/mailto:guardian.letters@theguardian.com?body=Please%20include%20your%20name,%20full%20postal%20address%20and%20phone%20number%20with%20your%20letter%20below.%20Letters%20are%20usually%20published%20with%20the%20author%27s%20name%20and%20city\/town\/village.%20The%20rest%20of%20the%20information%20is%20for%20verification%20only%20and%20to%20contact%20you%20where%20necessary.\" data-link-name=\"in body link \" https:=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/tone\/letters\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019m a little late to the table, I know (I\u2019ve been walking in the woods while my porridge&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[223,88],"class_list":["post-903565","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}