"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life." — Stephen King
February 26, 2015
When Suki Kim’s wrote about the six months she was as a teacher in North Korea, she was haunted by the idea that her book might lead to the punishment or even the death of her former students, who could be punished for knowing too much about … Read More
February 19, 2015
What is work? This is the question that poet Philip Levine, who died last Saturday, asked many times. He started working in a Detroit factory at age 14. He believed that his work as a poet was “to name and recover,” and to stand up for … Read More
February 12, 2015
This oral history collection by the York Archaeological Trust gives us a startling glimpse of life in a poor part of a city in northern England during the first third of the twentieth century. Our quotation above describes what it was like to have meals in homes … Read More
February 6, 2015
Who better to write a book about writing memoirs than Judith Barrington? She can speak from experience as an author and teacher. In this book, which is widely used in college courses and has sold more than 100,000 copies, she speaks to those who “aspire to … Read More
January 29, 2015
Faith Shearin is a master of metaphors. Here are some of my favorites from the poems in Moving the Piano: “We let the deer come to us like secrets, their legs made of silence.” (93) “…the water, which has grown colder, like a man’s hand at … Read More
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