"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
January 22, 2015
Some memoirs resemble novels — they build a story with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. The challenge for the writer is to make it interesting for readers who already know the ending. In the case of Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett, the reader knows … Read More
January 15, 2015
This is the first line of a poem by Billy Collins, who believes the “signature” of a poem is its tone. In an interview with George Plimpton for the Paris Review, Collins said, “The basis of trust for a reader used to be meter and end-rhyme. … Read More
January 11, 2015
This beautiful novel could be a “how to” manual for aspiring writers. It shows how to have a virtuous central character who is interesting — a rare feat in contemporary literature. It shows how to structure a novel without using standard architectural tools, such as chapters. It … Read More
January 4, 2015
This is the third of six volumes of memoir about the world and the imagination of Karl Ove Knausgaard. It’s a new kind of writing that defies categorization and is driven be the desire to explore the truth. For Knausgaard, “the truth” includes the things that he … Read More
December 28, 2014
No blog about books would be complete without a year-end “best of” list. For me, the best are “books that I am most likely to read again.” For fiction, I predict that I will turn to Donna Tart’s The Goldfinch many times in the years to come. … Read More
December 19, 2014
The word “humble” is not the first word I’d use to describe the tone of the academic articles that I read for a living. John Sutherland — highly respected and cited in the US and the UK — writes with an appealing mix of candor, authority, humor … Read More
December 11, 2014
One afternoon about twenty years ago, someone on NPR read the poem “On the Island” by Elizabeth Spires. I was driving my car, and I was so moved that I almost went into the ditch. This poem is infused with tension between the past and the … Read More
December 5, 2014
I admire young novelists who have something interesting to say about the world. I enjoy middle-aged novelists who share their complex lives with us. But most of all, I cheer for writers like Martha Woodroof, who, at age 67, has published her first novel. A self-described “… Read More
November 27, 2014
On Thanksgiving Day, I am particularly thankful for great writers. At the top of my list of favorites this year is Henry David Thoreau. I’ve loved Walden for decades, but now, thanks to the work of editor Jeffrey Cramer, I’m reading about what was happening “behind the … Read More
November 20, 2014
Of all of the divisive people in history, T. S. Eliot ranks at the top of the list in the literary world. Some find “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” incomprehensible, fragmented, and boring. Some consider it an inspired masterpiece. In a letter to his brother, … Read More
November 17, 2014
This is the first sentence from The White Album by Joan Didion, a classic from 1979. Known for her precise, unsentimental tone, she “wrote with a cool head in accordance with the principle that the lower the temperature of her prose, the higher the emotional voltage… Read More
November 6, 2014
I have always felt more at home with questions than with answers, and I gravitate toward poets who explore rather than explain. Mary Oliver, one of my favorites, writes in this poem, “I believe I will never quite know. Though I play at the edge of … Read More
October 30, 2014
Anthony Doerr believes that literary writers should “strive toward complexity, toward questions, and away from certainty, away from stereotype.” This novel, which is a page-turner, one worth getting up early to read, demonstrates that he follows his own advice. Set in France and Germany during 1934-2014, … Read More
October 23, 2014
How does a humorist write about death? This is what I wondered when I opened Delia Ephron‘s memoir, which has a piece called “Losing Nora” about her famous sister. She relies a lot on the formula that we see in the quote above: she starts by … Read More
October 16, 2014
What happens when a novel begins in the middle of the story? There is a certain awkwardness. You can anticipate that there will be a lot of skipping around, which requires concentration. Is it worth it? In the case of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, the … Read More