No question, Elizabeth Gilbert’s follow up to Eat, Pray, Love (which I hated but yes I have to confess, I did stay with it, my nose held tight, til the end), Committed, is the book of the season—the featured review in the New York Times Book Review last Sunday, media tour appearances hither and yon. […]
Books
Condimenting
Malcolm Gladwell is a phenom to be sure. His books always end up on the best seller list (there are two of them on now, Outliers and What the Dog Saw) and he is a popular inspirational keynote speaker. I admit, I imbibe. I read his New Yorker pieces religiously. I’ve read all his books. […]
Top Ten, Plus a Few
More lists! This time, it’s books. Amazingly, the overlap of favored titles is not extensive. *** The year’s top books as chosen by the New York Times: Fiction Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, by Maile Meloy Chronic City, by Jonathan Lethem A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore Half Broke […]
Leaning with Comfort on the Mysteries
As is often the case, random walks through Webspace can put you face to face with surprises and unexpected treasures. I happened upon an ad for Eakins Press, and it piqued my interest. In a blurb for one of Eakins Press’ books, The Bitch-Goddess Success, edited by Leslie George Katz, three memorable quotes appeared: …the […]
Sumptuous Failure
Sebastian Willnow/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Failure. Just writing the letters that make up that loaded term shifts my energy. We live in a culture that is fixated on success, on winning, on being the best. When an English friend of mine first moved to the United States, this is how he described his new […]
Light Seekers
Highlights from a much needed getaway to New York: *** Charlie Hass (Photo, Narrative Magazine) Watching Charlie Haas carry off the best book reading event ever with his performance (I don’t use that word lightly) from his new novel, The Enthusiast. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who needs their spirits enthused. (Learn more […]
Dreamy Present, Dreamy Past
My friend and frequent co-traveler Lesli during a trip to Florence last December This is a great description of what can be so intoxicating—and effective—about traveling as a way of assuaging a sorrow or loss. This passage is by Liesl Schillinger from her review of the novel Brooklyn by Colm Toibin in the Times Book […]
Smart and Thoughtful, and Better Than Donuts
Now this is a great title for a book: What Are Intellectuals Good For? And the first thing that came to mind is the now legendary episode of the Simpsons where an oversized donut falls from the shop’s marquee, lands on the fleeing villain and saves the day to which Homer responds with his signatory […]
The Picasso Problem: V. S. Naipaul
Interest in the new biography of literary lion V. S. Naipaul continues. Patrick French’s The World Is What It Is was written with full cooperation from Naipaul, and that fact makes the horrific (and, we are led to believe, honest) accounts of his abusive personal relationships even more unsettling. At one level I am not […]
Throw Me In With The Throwbacks
As a follow on to an earlier posting here about awards for bad sex writing (11/26/08), I found myself fascinated by Toni Bentley’s captivating review of Ian Kelly’s new biography, Casanova in the Sunday Times Book Review. A biography about a legendary philanderer is not a topic I would ordinarily find compelling, but Bentley goes […]