There are two conventions prevalent at the turn of the New Year of which I am highly skeptical: “Best Of” end-of-the-year lists and New Year’s resolutions. “Best Of” end-of-the-year lists because how can anyone say that their highly subjective and often dubious rankings of all the books that have been issued over the last year [….]
The Perfume Collector Kathleen Tessaro Last week, I loaned out my copy of Kathleen Tessaro’s lovely 2013 novel The Perfume Collector to two friends; the first one to borrow it ended up buying it for her e-reader, the other one told me that she was close to the final pages but was reading it very [….]
Bartleby, the Scrivener, by Herman Melville Overworked employees, endless legal documents to be copied, the futility of dead letters—it’s no wonder Bartleby, Melville’s titular anti-hero is in a bad way. Whether he’s mad or not depends on who you ask, though in Melville’s world, the law copyist, or scrivener, who goes on strike while refusing [….]
Recently, the New York Times came out with their list of 100 Most Notable Books for 2014, and the literary world took notice. I certainly will admit to taking notice. I immediately ran down the list and counted up how many of the books on the list I had read. I was pleased to see [….]
We’ve all seen the adage, “So many books, so little time!” I myself find this to be so very true – there are indeed many, many wonderful books available to most of us, too many to be read in one lifetime. So where does someone who loves books draw the line? How do we gauge [….]
Hi, my name is Sharon. I’m a library request addict. It used to be that I would only request a few books a week from my local library. Books I’d been wanting to read for a while or books that friends had recommended, occasionally a title I had read about in the Sunday “Books” section [….]
The Master, by Colm Tóibín I was only a page or so into Colm Tóibín’s novel, when it became clear that its subject, Henry James, was being portrayed not only through historical material of his life, but in a prose style suggestive of the subject himself. The Master, published in 2004, doesn’t quite contain the [….]
A Brief Look at Three Books on Writing Craft —Lauren Alwan When it comes to books on the craft of writing, I tend to like those that teach through close readings of literature. Maybe it has to do with the grad program I attended, or that when I’m caught up in a book, I’m both [….]
Knuckleball Ned R.A. Dickey Tuesday night was Major League Baseball’s All Star Game, and in honor of the mid-season classic, my recommendation for this week is a fun and uplifting children’s book written by one of baseball’s most interesting active players: Cy Young award winning knuckleball pitcher R.A. Dickey. Written for his four children, this [….]
William Shakespeare The Sonnets It may be a day late to pin this recommendation to the 450th anniversary of the birth and death of William Shakespeare, but I still can think of no better way to mark the end of National Poetry Month than to pause and take note of some of the (in my [….]
