The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford If this novel had been published under the title the author chose, The Saddest Story, contemporary readers might have had a difficult time locating a copy. Fortunately, Ford Madox Ford agreed to his publisher’s suggestion of The Good Soldier, and with that, the now-classic post-World War I novel [….]
Spielberg, Truffaut and Me: An Actor’s Diary, by Bob Balaban With the Pentagon’s recent release of three unclassified videos of UFO’s taken by navy pilots, it’s understandable you might be watching the skies. And if you’ve yet to see Steven Spielberg’s classic of extraterrestrial contact, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the title of which [….]
WTAW Press 2019 Titles WTAW Press released two great titles in 2019, Chimerica, the debut novel from Anita Fellicelli, and Like Water and Other Stories, the English-language debut of Olga Zilberbourg, Both titles are available as ebooks, here. In Chimerica, by Anita Felicelli, down-on-her-luck Tamil American trial lawyer Maya Ramesh fights to save a painted [….]
Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray The early nineteenth century didn’t have reality television, but it did have William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair—and if you’re in need of a novel to escape into, this is the one. Vanity Fair is a classic of social-climbing, backbiting, profligate behavior, and true love. Subtitled A Novel Without a [….]
Little Failure: A Memoir, by Gary Shteyngart “In order for me to be born,” Gary Shteyngart says early on in his memoir, “all four branches of my family have to end up in Leningrad, trading in their tiny towns and villages for that somber, canal-laced cityscape. Here’s how it happens.” Voice, more than anything, can [….]
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 [….]
As you read this you may, like me, be working from home, while your partner is doing the same, and your child, or children, are at home too. Suddenly, this is the way things are, or at least should be, to #flattenthecurve of a very frightening virus. What happens when societies suddenly change is not [….]
How to Write an Autobiographical Novel: Essays, by Alexander Chee “Writing is a way of going to the depth of Being,” wrote Marguerite Yourcenar, and the sixteen essays that make up Alexander Chee’s 2018 memoir are about the heart of being—and writing, about striving to succeed as a writer, reconciling the pain and trauma of [….]
Car Trouble: A novel, by Robert Rorke As Car Trouble opens, the novel’s young protagonist, teenaged Nicky Flynn, is driving backwards in a Chevy Impala nicknamed the Blue Max. The car, which belongs to his impulsive father, Patrick, goes in one direction only, backwards, due to a jammed gearshift. And Patrick, who Nicky wryly refers [….]
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens Narrated by Eddie Izzard I will admit that in a life full of fondness for Charles Dickens (I have on one bookshelf a full set of the Worthington Dickens, published in 1884), Great Expectations is not my favorite. Not my least favorite, but definitely not my favorite. I am also [….]
