Last week, when the Emmy nominations were announced, the BBC Three series Fleabag received eleven nominations—for writing, acting, and direction, and no wonder. Written by and starring creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge in the eponymous role, the series is a marvel of wit and dark humor. Broadcast in the US on Amazon Video, Fleabag has caused a [….]
Werewolves in Their Youth: Stories, by Michael Chabon Michael Chabon’s, Werewolves in Their Youth isn’t a horror or sci-fi, though Chabon is a fan. The collection, published in 1999, features characters who move about in the placid light of day, until some triggering event causes a dark side to emerge. The results are the entertaining turns [….]
The Clothing of Books by Jhumpa Lahiri “How do you clothe a book?” is the how this small, but powerful volume begins. For a writer whose stories are as personal and complex as Jhumpa Lahiri’s, a cover’s design presents a different set of questions. The Clothing of Books began as an essay, translated from Italian [….]
On Wednesday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller spoke publicly for the first time about the Russia investigation he began over two years ago, and with that a book that is likely to contain the political story of our era, came to life in a way it hadn’t before. I purchased my copy, published by The Washington [….]
Car Touble: A NovelRobert Rorke Harper Perennial Publication Date: September 11, 2018 ISBN: 978-0062848499 As Car Trouble opens, it’s one a.m., and the novel’s young protagonist, Nicky Flynn, is driving backwards through the streets of Brooklyn in a Chevy Impala. The car, nicknamed the Blue Max, operates only in reverse, due to a jammed gearshift, [….]
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt The reception Donna Tartt garnered for her third novel—her first in twelve years—was called a phenomenon and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014 (among other honors). The story centers on young Theo Decker, whose mother is killed in a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum of [….]
The Boys of My Youth, by Jo Ann Beard When it was released in 1998, I somehow missed Jo Ann Beard’s debut collection of essays, but as luck would have it, I recently fell down an Internet rabbit hole and ended up here, at the first publication of her now iconic essay, “The Fourth State [….]
Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, by Alysia Abbott “The truth is,” Alysia Abbot writes in her debut memoir, Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father, “I did want to be my dad’s poem. I wanted to be his drawing, his novella, his most refined work of art. I wanted him to shape me with his [….]
My Misspent Youth, essays by Meghan Daum My introduction to Daum and her essays was Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, her account of wanting, finding, losing and finding the ideal home. It’s a memoir of coming into one’s own in regard to matters of money—real estate, mortgages, income and outflow. [….]
Author: The Portraits of Beowulf Sheehan. By Beowulf Sheehan. Foreword by Salman Rushdie. If you need a gift for the book lovers on your list, this is the coffee table book everyone’s talking about—at least those who love books and their writers. Beowulf Sheehan, the literary world’s foremost photographer, has a newly collected volume of [….]
