The Tall Book of Make-Believe ed. Jane Werner Illustrated by Garth Williams Well beyond the age it’s intended for, this collection of stories has stayed with me. This American classic of children’s stories and poems was compiled by Jane Werner in 1950, and from the start this book captured my […]
Nora Webster, by Colm Tóibín At the heart of Colm Tóibín‘s new novel is the story of a woman, a story, he says, he’d been circling around for years. It’s there, in his novels and stories (eight novels and a collection) as a metaphor, an idea at the perimeter. That novel, […]
Sometimes, the hardest thing about writing a weekly column is coming up with a good idea.Often for me, ideas seem to appear just in the nick of time – ta dah! – giving me just enough slack to delve into the topic but not enough time to allow it to […]
Not all crime novels are Spillane. Not all in this genre have the desperate, gorgeous dame leaning on a P.I.’s desk, tear-stained cheeks, begging said P.I. to solve her mystery. Sure, those noir-type novels are great, but the genre has come a long, long way. This week we’re discussing our […]
On this day, December 3, in 1857, Joseph Conrad was born in Berdichev, Imperial Russia (modern
Ukraine, then a part of Poland). While he settled in England and wrote in English, he always considered himself a Pole. Heart of Darkness, one of the most famous of his 20 novels (which explores colonialism and the attitudes regarding what constitutes a barbarian versus civilized society) is considered one of the best English novels of the 20th century, as is his novel Lord Jim, which chronicles a crew’s abandonment of its disabled ship. Conrad died in England in 1924 at age 66.