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…
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…
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. …
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…
Her mother was a nurse, shot in World War II in Nepal. She—my mother-in-law—was an Ivy League-educated, motorcycle-driving, garden-planting veterinarian in Vermont… with a pilot’s license. When she passed away…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Poets fall in love with poems all the time, so much so that the question “what poem did you love last” isn’t really a question, but an invitation to wax…