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…

Body and Soul by Frank Conroy: A Musician in America

Howards End: A Great Novel

Forgiveness: Love of My Youth, by Mary Gordon

I forgive Mary Gordon for the first two-thirds of her novel, Love of My Youth, which are hard and brittle; forgiveness is absolute because of the final third of her novel, which is brilliant.

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Well-Awarded and Well-Deserved

Jennifer Egan has won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction with her latest novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad. This wonderful novel deserves both awards, along with the heaps of excellent reviews and…

Adam Goodheart: The Hearts and Minds That Made the Civil War

In his marvelous book, 1861: The Civil War Awakening, Adam Goodheart presents a rich and vivid portrait of what Americans of the time were all about at the start of the Civil War; he explores what ordinary people and…

Murder Across the Centuries

After too many nights spent staying up late reading (the reading was glorious, the way I felt the next…