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On the home front, he captures the silent grandeur and froideur of his parents' apartment overlooking Gramercy Park, decorated with paintings from William Randolph Hearst's excess lots, which they bought at Gimbels department store. He encapsulates his uneasy relationship with his fastidious, prematurely old father with this anecdote: "As a child, I was expected to be old, too. 'Roger,' he said one day, 'that's no way for a 12-year-old boy to behave.' 'Dad,' I said, 'I'm 8.'"

Readers of Making Toast may remember Rosenblatt's antics entertaining his newly bereaved grandchildren as "Boppo the Great." He tells other stories about his delight in flaunting decorum, even when it meant embarrassing his children by dancing in the street. And he's not afraid of embarrassing himself. He recalls standing side by side at the urinals with a Washington Post editor in the mid-1970s and wondering aloud about why the "n" is pronounced in columnist but not column. Rosenblatt writes, "Without looking up, he said, 'Roger, I wish I had your problems.'"

More on Roger Rosenblatt

Routine Fosters Resilience In 'Making Toast'

On this 34th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, thousands of Iranians gathered outside that building to once again chant "Death to America."

But New York Times Bureau Chief Thomas Erdbrink told NPR's Steve Inskeep on Monday that though the shouts were the same as they've been since 1979 and the demonstration was larger than in recent years, the people he interviewed there were not virulently anti-American.

"All the people I spoke with," Erbrink said, "didn't really mind Iran talking to the United States ... [and they] admitted they want to see some sort of solution" to three-plus decades of fractured relations.

Anti-American hardliners, Edbrink added, "who feel their interests will be threatened" if multinational talks lead to a resolution of the impasse over Iran's nuclear ambitions, packed Monday's demonstration with "government workers and schoolkids."

He noted that hardliners are upset about the willingness of new President Hassan Rouhani and his aides to sit down with the U.S. and its partners. Iran wants a lifting of economic sanctions. The nations on the other side of the table want to make sure Iran does not join the list of nations with nuclear weapons.

Over the weekend, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a message that praised and defended the work of Iran's nuclear negotiators, NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Istanbul. That would seem to be an endorsement of Rouhani's efforts.

But the ayatollah also lent some support to those who organized the "death to America" protest. As Peter reports, the ayatollah said those who stormed the embassy in 1979 — taking hostages who would be held for 444 days — were the first to uncover the "den of espionage" at the diplomatic mission.

Like many Syrian exiles, Murhaf Jouejati, a professor at National Defense University, is frustrated by U.S. policy toward Syria. He says there's been only a trickle of U.S. aid to the secular, nationalist opposition in Syria, while the Islamists have no trouble raising money through their networks in the Arab world.

Parallels

Small Syrian Border Town Magnifies Rift Between Rebel Groups

The small town of Rjukan has long had to make do without sunlight during the cold Norwegian winters.

But that changed Wednesday, when the town debuted a system of high-tech mirrors to reflect sunlight from neighboring peaks into the valley below.

The Two-Way

Norwegian Town's Bright Idea Is A Shining Example Of Ingenuity