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The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg 20 Aug 2013 | 12:09 am
This is a strange admission from someone who actively sought out and purchased this novel, but I expected not to like The Middlesteins by Jami Attenberg. I had a prejudice against it for a few batty r...
The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle 17 Aug 2013 | 03:43 am
The last two novels I read were big disappointments, so I was really excited when, a few pages into The Devil in Silver by Victor LaValle, I realized I was embarking on a book I wasn’t going to want t...
Happy Fifth Birthday, Our Books Are Better Than We Are / Elect H. Mouse State Judge by Nelly Reifler 14 Aug 2013 | 07:16 pm
I’m so pleased to write my 5th anniversary blog post (my 153rd!) about the novel Elect H. Mouse State Judge by Nelly Reifler. Since most of you reading this are probably people I know personally, plen...
The Golden Bowl by Henry James 14 Aug 2013 | 06:34 pm
I don’t have much to say about this book, but in the interest of chronicling what I read, and because I already mentioned in a previous post that it was our next book club pick, I did want to make a s...
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer 18 Jul 2013 | 03:10 am
I write this blog so that I can work through the craft of novels and short stories. I have a hard time seeing structure or defining other writer’s tricks without writing about their work myself. I can...
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 20 Jun 2013 | 09:45 pm
I think I’ve mentioned that I am part of a book group called “Masochists and Classics.” My friend Nicki was inspired to start the club by a reading of Moby Dick that I co-organized last summer. The fi...
Double Happiness by Mary-Beth Hughes 23 May 2013 | 11:02 pm
I wasn’t lying in my last post when I said that, after reading Mary-Beth Hughes’s story “Pelican Song,” I was going to buy her book. I bought it that day and dove in. Sadly, while I liked the book e...
Pelican Song by Mary-Beth Hughes 14 May 2013 | 07:20 pm
I came across “Pelican Song” by Mary-Beth Hughes within the collection Object Lessons, the recent Paris Review anthology. In the book, it is introduced by Mary Gaitskill who writes, “‘Pelican Song’ is...
Half in Love by Maile Meloy 25 Apr 2013 | 06:10 pm
After reading Both Ways is the Only Way I Want It, I wanted to read everything Maile Meloy has ever written. “Everything” isn’t all that much, though, so even though I’ve had Half in Love on my shelf ...
When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka 30 Mar 2013 | 01:38 am
Julie Otsuka works hard on her fiction–I know she does–but how effortless does she make it seem? Her prose is so spare, simple and genuine that it reveals no evidence of labor or revision. It is so tr...
