Fiction Archives |
'A Christmas Carol' & Beyond: Shorter books, please! - The writer I used to be would be appalled by the writer I have become.
A butcher.
Back in the days before you could get credit at Harvard for t
2182 Kilohertz, David Masiel - I've just read a stunning news item: So much of the Arctic ice cover has disappeared “that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most n
A Million Little Pieces, James Frey - I am old enough to have lost friends to drugs and alcohol addiction.
A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, Peter Handke - The Sunday edition of the Kärnter Volkszeitung carried the following item under 'Local News': 'In the village of A. (G.
A Stranger Like You, Elizabeth Brundage - Hugh Waters has a problem --- no, Hugh Waters is a problem.
He’s the original nowhere man: dead-end job at an insurance company, childless
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan -
Jennifer Egan won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Now she’s added the Pulitzer Prize.
You would be entirely forgiven if th
About the Author: A Novel, John Colapinto - There are evenings when the invite to the duchess’s ball didn’t arrive and there’s nothing on TV, not even a black-and-white film on
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, Jean Rhys - The favorite writer of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is rumored to be Jean Rhys (1890-1979).
Alan Furst: Blood of Victory - Countries need oil for blood, steel for bone, rubber for feet. And in wartime, even more so. Think back to your American History courses.
Alan Furst: Dark Voyage, Alan Furst - I spent my free moments this week reading my favorite kind of book --- one you can't put down.
Alan Furst: Spies of the Balkans - It’s a bittersweet day around here when a new Alan Furst novel arrives.
On the plus side: I get to spend an entire day reading about 1939 or 194
Alan Furst: The Foreign Correspondent - The reason I have avoided thrillers all my reading life is sex.
The heroes of these books are usually manly men, built on the John Wayne model.
Alan Furst: The Spies of Warsaw - The “spy” is “an ordinary-looking man, who led a rather ordinary life” --- he's a mid-level engineer at a German ironworks, m
Alice Bliss, Laura Harrington - Tell me you wouldn’t react as I did.
The name of the novel is “Alice Bliss.” That is, not surprisingly, the name of the 14-year-old
Alice Bliss, Laura Harrington - Tell me you wouldn’t react as I did.
The name of the novel is “Alice Bliss.” That is, not surprisingly, the name of the 14-year-old
All Quiet on the Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque - I'm trying to recall a novel about war that makes it sound like a good thing.
All the King's Men, Robert Penn Warren - The 1946 novel, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Robert Penn Warren and is generally considered the greatest of all American political novels.
It asks
Andre Dubus: Selected Stories - He was a small boy from Louisiana who listened to the opera on the radio on Saturday afternoons.
Antonya Nelson: Female Trouble - Both her parents were English professors, so it wasn’t entirely surprising that Antonya Nelson grew up writing stories.
Arrowsmith, Sinclair Lewis - Sinclair Lewis is the bookend to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both were born in Minnesota. Fitzgerald went to Princeton, Lewis to Yale.