Last Book I Loved

Two of my family members recently passed away within a few months of each other.  The loss burrowed into my fingertips; for a while pretty much every draft or story I began involved the recent death of a loved one…

After I read Péter Nádas’s beautiful novella, “Le nu féminine en mouvement,” in the Winter 2010 issue of The Paris Review, I couldn’t believe it: who is this writer? Why had I never heard of him before? How did he…

Knowing that War and Peace is Richard Bausch’s favorite book, it seemed only right—especially considering its title—that I read his latest novel, Peace, on the heels of Count Tolstoy’s tome.  Its brevity also appealed to me.  After spending six months…

Confession time: I’ve never read 1984. Sure, it was assigned in high school, as were Crime and Punishment, Madame Bovary, and Great Expectations.  I didn’t read those either (though, for some strange reason, I finished Animal Dreams in an inspired…

This summer, I find myself reading young adult fiction on the bus as inconspicuously as possible, wrapping my arm around the cover in such a way that no one will know its title, and tilting the book just-so, so that…

When we were all eight, the girls in my grade decided we had secret worlds. One world belonged to me and my best friend Chloe, and the other world belonged to every other eight-year old girl; and the clash between…

The last book I loved is about a woman named Bluma who was, arguably, killed by a poem, and a man called Carlos Brauer who loved books so much he mistook them for his mind, and cemented himself inside them…

Three years ago this spring I gave myself one Sunday afternoon off from self-pity to indulge in some window-shopping. A movie rental place among the sporadic cush boutiques of a “turning” avenue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn first caught my guilt-trap.

I work at a bookstore in Berkeley, California; so, as one can imagine, I get and give book recommendations often.  Many of these recommendations I am compelled to ignore, because between that job and my other one, the writing I…

The first thing I noticed about this book, before I even wrestled with its gruesome and tender topics, is the style. Flynn is a poet, which is clear from the first sentence.