The Longest Chapter is a blog about my journey with books, the longest chapter of my now middle-aged life.
What you’ll find here is the content of that journey. It includes reviews and comments on new releases, as well as recommendations for books from the past, classics as well as the many terrific books packed into library stacks or bookstore aisles. Sometimes the best books are the oldest books in The Longest Chapter.
Because I am an avid book collector, one of those “gently mad” individuals of Nicholas Basbanes’ fame, you will also find blogging in here about first editions and collecting those first editions.
My gentle madness focuses on modern firsts and includes, among other authors, William Faulkner, Shirley Jackson, William Styron, Philip Roth, Dawn Powell, Katherine Anne Porter, Ian Fleming (vintage paperbacks), Langston Hughes and Thomas Pynchon.
The Reading Table in The Longest Chapter is a page that changes as the books on my reading table change. In other words, it will change slowly and erratically. I have created the page for virtual browsing, as friends tend to gravitate to this table in my home to discover what I’m reading or want to read, and to get ideas for their own reading tables.
Finally, there will be blogs about poetry in The Longest Chapter. That glorious literary music that moves and inspires me and makes me laugh. That which I encourage everyone to read.
