Been re-re-re-reading Birds of America (I tend to seek shelter in books I love during confused and fucked-up times), and melted into this:
She had already — carefully, obediently — stepped through all the stages of bereavement: anger, denial, bargaining, Häagen-Dazs, rage. Anger to rage — who said she wasn’t making progress?
Substitute bourbon balls and ginger […]

As someone who has, by dint of surname, been associated with seafaring scoundrels all my life, I was pretty much obligated to pick this up before my trip to DC. I started reading the Scientists volume (it’s two books in one!) on the flight home, with embarrassing consequences (laughter and at least one particularly loud […]

As much as I enjoyed slothing off during the week between Christmas and New Year’s, it didn’t do too much to ameliorate the let-down feeling that descended Boxing Day. Reading Perseopolis, however, quickly put a stop to my moping: there’s nothing like immersing oneself in the story of someone who, as a child, endured political […]

During the holiday hullabaloo, I decided to try starting Three Junes again after having given up on it more than a year ago. Surprisingly, I found myself drawn into the story after only a few pages.
The novel portrays the McLeods, a Scottish family, via three overlapping narratives. The first focuses on Paul McLeod, a newspaper […]

From the redoubtable Alice Bradley:
Today I made the mistake of reading an interview between Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem, and they were talking about the five or six hours each day they devote to their writing, how satisfying it was to have SO MUCH time to write! Devoting those hours to their Art infuses the […]