Finding a Reason to Live in The Elegance of the Hedgehog

Ernest Hemingway: Famous Last Words

Aphorisms from Hemingway: that is the gist of A.E. Hotchner’s new book about his friend Ernest Hemingway (he has two previous books, Papa Hemingway, and Dear Papa, Dear Hotch). Hotchner says in the foreword to The Good Life According to Hemingway (published 2008)…

Payback from Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s book, Payback, has its subtitle “Debt and the Shadows of Wealth.” With my aging eyes, I initially read this as “Debt and the Shadows of Death”. After reading the book, I think either subtitle would be appropriate. Because we are in a constant state of…

Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Women Understood

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) wrote influential feminist treatises. If her treatises were as good as her short stories, they must have persuaded legions to the cause of feminism. Her short stories are themselves effective prose on behalf of the…

Bella and Dracula: Two Very Different Stories of Lust and Longing

In September, before I began my 365 project, I read Dracula by Bram Stoker. Dracula is scary and riveting and well-written. It presents an appropriate parable for our times, a parable about greed. Count Dracula is not…

Very Different Davids (Take One)

The thing about most books of single-author essays is that you cannot just sit down and read through the essays without the writing style and/or topics and/or general take on life, becoming very repetitive. So over the past two days I switched back and forth between the…

Jose Eduardo Agualusa: Through the Eyes of a Gecko

Jose Eduardo Agualusa’s novel, The Book Of Chameleons, is the first I’ve read by this Angolan born writer. I loved it so much I will definitely read his earlier ones, including Creole and My Father’s Wives. Agualusa is an original and…

The Lost Prophecies: Powerful Words

Six writers of historical mysteries and thrillers come together in The Lost Prophecies to imagine the far-reaching consequences of a book foretelling future events. Five of the authors I’ve never read, Bernard Knight, Ian Morson, Michael Jecks, Susanna Gregory, and…

Julian Barnes on Life and Death

In Nothing to Be Frightened Of (published in 2008), Julian Barnes grapples with death: the death of his parents and his own death, sure to come. In death no one is alone, we are all going to get there, sooner or later, and Barnes is erudite and quietly funny in getting us…

Toni Morrison: A Powerful Mercy

Toni Morrison’s A Mercy feels like her best book yet. I say “feels” because in the novel Morrison…