"Do Not Deny Me" is a new short story collection whose characters are drawn from everyday life. Facing distressing circumstances, they reach for hope and new ways to go forward.
A bookshop across the pond
While reading the London Review of Books, I discovered some upcoming Fall releases in the U.S. are already available in the U.K. I also found a new place to spend my money - at the London Review Bookshop.
Come on back to the typewriter
An impulsive mid-day trip to a bookstore on the other side of town connected me to unexpected treasures of Anne Sexton's poetry. Here's what I bought, and why I thought of Kathleen Norris's "Acedia & Me."
The greatest war novel of all time
Erich Maria Remarque fought in the horrific trench warfare of World War I and survived to write "All Quiet on the Western Front." He gives his narrator, a German soldier, insight that, in moving, simplistic prose, expresses loss of emotional youth and wisdom of war's follies. Some passages and scenes, so personal, so lyric, call to be reread several times.
Headlights on September
Publisher's Weekly issued "The Road to Fall Books" this week. From the looks of the lists within, we'll be bombarded with a slew of new selections. Here's what caught my attention.
How romance adds up
The June 22nd issue of The New Yorker features a profile of mega-selling romance writer Nora Roberts. My experience with the romance genre is limited (best we make that "extremely limited"), but the profile interested me for its data on the genre.
A winning debut
Michael Thomas recently received the 2009 International Impac Dublin Literary Award for his debut novel, "Man Gone Down." It was chosen out of a final list of eight novels from the United States, Norway, India, Pakistan and France. If this stellar novel is not on your reading table, it should be.
54 years, 54 books
To celebrate my birthday today - turning a frolicsome 54 - I compiled a list of 54 favorite books. The majority are novels, but there are also mysteries (Daphne du Maurier), memoirs (Patricia Hampl), Vietnam books (Tim O'Brien), classics (Norman MacLean), short stories (Ellen Gilchrist), Pulitzer Prize winners (Wallace Stegner) and more. Not a mere list, though, but also descriptions and commentary to help fill those summer reading totes.
He couldn’t stop
Walter Kirn's new memoir mocks the academic meritocracy that deemed him a scholarly achiever. "Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever" reveals he was a student who collected academic awards and prizes, honors and commendations, as if it were a game to be played and not an education to be gained. It's a sobering and funny book.
The answer’s in the carpet
"Of Human Bondage" is William Somerset Maugham's masterpiece and a classic coming-of-age story originally published in 1915. It follows protagonist Philip Carey, from childhood through young adult years, as an artist in Paris and a medical student in London. Along the way, he wrestles with the meaning of life.
“The Photographer”
Photojournalist Didier Lefevre traveled into the far northern reaches of Afghanistan with Doctors Without Borders in 1986. The leader of the expedition invited Didier so he could document the mission's effort to set up a small field hospital in the war-torn nation. "The Photographer" tells the mission's story in black and white photographs knitted together with prose and artwork in the style of a graphic novel. It's a visual treat.
The pony problem
Having come off two dark books, let alone a friend's doom and gloom email, I've been thinking about books that made me laugh. Sloane Crosley hits the top of the list with "I Was Told There'd Be Cake," as do two other all-time favorites.
The revolutionary road not taken
Richard Yates' 1961 novel "Revolutionary Road" now moves off my reading table. I read it compulsively, neglecting the books on my Currently Reading list. My attachment to the book - made into a movie starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio - surprised me.
Libby needs a happy place
"Dark Places" is Gillian Flynn's new novel set in Kansas during 1985 and the present. It's a fictional crime story about a family murder reinvestigated by the surviving daughter, Libby, 25 years after it happened. Had the author created a more convincing Libby, "Dark Places" would be a terrific story instead of acceptable entertainment.
Window on a sleazy world
Living in a drunken stupor may not seem like palatable reading matter, but Patrick deWitt’s unique style in his debut novel "Ablutions: Notes for a Novel" is – well – addictive. DeWitt's "Ablutions" is written in the rare second-person viewpoint.
The Longest Chapter 