the last book i loved

As soon as I started reading Beautiful Children, I disliked it. This reaction was gratifying. I went to graduate school in the late 80s and early 90s, where I learned…

Art and life seem to intersect at my alarming weakness for the archetypal dissatisfied middle-aged American male. In countless viewings, I’ve watched reverently as Annie Hall’s Alvie Singer mutters and…

There’s something romantic about aged books; out-of-print texts that taunt existence, ready to fall from the public conscious without a single clap or salute. The Art Fair is David Lipsky’s…

People get sick of hearing the same story over and over again. I assume it’s why healthy couples split off from each other at cocktail parties. Peter Matthiessen has not…

The last book that I truly loved was The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu. Sometimes I will pick up a few books at a time and see…

When I was a kid I would wander down the block, four houses over, to visit our neighborhood “grandma,” Mrs. Koski. At her house I was treated to Cheetos and…

Austrian writer Peter Handke begins his 1972 novel Short Letter, Long Farewell with the following: “Jefferson Street is a quiet thoroughfare in Providence. It circles around the business section, changes…

One of the best things about reading Joan Didion is her honesty, the fact that she hasn’t forgotten the uncertainty that comes from being young, or just how hard it…

The great thing about Russian literature is how strange it is. The characters in Dostoevsky are always breaking out in histrionics. They bustle about, shake their fists, and call each…

Editor’s alert: Key plot points of this book are discussed below. Junot Diaz won the Pulitzer Prize for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The plot trajectory of the…