Yesterday I Read Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust

Yesterday I sat down and read straight through Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust. Seven volumes, over 4000 pages. What a treat. And speaking of a treat, does anyone know of a good place to buy madeleines in…

Connection: The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes and Forster’s Howard’s End

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes won this year’s Man Booker Prize. Barnes is a lovely and probing writer, smart and observant and productive, willing to go out again and again in search of…

“I Am That Is!”: Farewell to Brian Jacques, Who Wielded Words So Well

Joy Over Despair: The Gospel Found in Just Kids by Patti Smith

When Patti Smith was just a kid, with her eyes on the stars and her heart open to adventure, she met Robert Mapplethorpe: “On a simple iron bed,a boy was sleeping. He was pale and slim with massess of dark curls, lying…

Body and Soul by Frank Conroy: A Musician in America

Holding Beauty and Loss in the Palm of His Hand: Edmund de Waal and the story of the Ephrussi Netsuke

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair

Tomorrow, June 7th, my memoir entitled Tolstoy and the Purple Chair will be released. In anticipation, and as…

While Mortals Sleep: So Much That Kurt Vonnegut Left Behind For Us

Nothing Wanting in Found Wanting, by Robert Goddard

Found Wanting by Robert Goddard is a fictional thriller revolving around the facts, both disputed and undisputed, of the Russian Revolution and the question of who benefitted from the vast stores of Romanov riches left behind after the…