“The Pale King”
This was boredom beyond any boredom he’d ever felt. This made the routing desk at UPS look like a day at Six Flags.
Tackling a David Foster Wallace novel is like sitting in the middle of Times Square observing the the minutia of all the activity while simultaneously watching an episode of Seinfeld and feeling like a part of a Don Delillo novel. At times hilarious, the scene is also overwhelming with the details of what we all know to be true about life: often boring, repetitious, and anxiety provoking but also entertaining and sprinkled with fun and joy. Read more 
“Zealot”
The more I probed the Bible to arm myself against the doubts of unbelievers, the more distance I discovered between the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history – between Jesus the Christ and Jesus of Nazareth.
Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan was given to me to read by a Jewish friend, who told me “you have to read this book.” He had recently attended a gathering where the keynote speaker was Reza Aslan – an American-Iranian writer and academic in religious studies and creative writing – and was mesmerized by both the author and the book. Read more
“The Easter Parade”
I say,….Straight ahead. No Looking back; no looking sideways – ….Straight ahead.
When our nation celebrated it’s bicentennial nearly 40 years ago in 1976, the country was in the midst of a major shift in gender rights. Although the feminist movement began to gain momentum in the 1970’s and the United Nations had just declared the decade 1976 – 1985 as the UN Decade for Women, the reality was that women were still unable to break through the glass ceiling in certain fields and only earned 62% of what men earned making them either dependent upon men or limited economically. Read more
“A Map of Betrayal”
I’ve been left alone to do my own work, to live my own life. ~Ha Jin
Contemporary Chinese literature is a genre that doesn’t occupy a lot of shelf space in bookstores or on Amazon (only 104 books show up on a recent search) which probably has more to do with repression and censorship than with lack of interest. With nearly 20% of the world’s population (1.5 billion people) in China, there should be an abundance of talented writers whose works are translated and available to the public. Instead, we have but a few writers who’ve escaped from China and been given the freedom to pursue their craft and write without fear of censorship or punishment. Read more
“Such Good Girls”
I knew I was Jewish, but I didn’t know I was Jewish.
There are hundreds if not thousands of books in print about the Holocaust, most of which cover the Nazi regime, concentration camps, survivors of the camps, and the political environment but there are very few books about the “hidden children” – the infants, toddlers, and school age children – who were hidden, often in plain sight of the Nazis during World War II, and survived.
These children grew up, often left Europe, and for the most part were silent because they were taught to stay quiet to avoid detection, didn’t know if they could trust their memories, and didn’t have the resources to process what had happened to them. And so, very little has been written about them because so little has been known, until recently. Read more
“Elizabeth Costello”
I say what I mean. I am an old woman. I do not have the time any longer to say things I do not mean.
Elizabeth Costello is an elderly Australian writer who despite having written several novels is primarily known for a book she published decades ago about the wife of a principal character of another novel, Ulysses by James Joyce. Frustrated that her other works are often ignored, she chooses to speak on controversial issues, philosophers, and unrelated topics when asked to give a lecture, conduct a seminar, or interact with those in the literary world. Read more
“The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry”
A question I’ve thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.
In The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, author Gabrielle Zevin introduces A.J. Fikry, a 39-year old grumpy man whose pleasures in life are few. Recently widowed, A.J. finds himself running Island Books, a 700 square foot independent bookstore in a purple Victorian house on Alice Island, off the Massachusetts coastline (seems vaguely familiar to Oak Bluffs in Martha’s Vineyard), without the warm touch of his wife, Nic, who was killed in a tragic car accident (is there any other kind?). Read more
“Nine Inches”
It’s easy to say you should let a kid follow his heart. But what if his heart takes him places you don’t want to go?
Nine Inches is a collection of short stories written by Tom Perrotta, an American writer, novelist and screenwriter who often writes of high school using all the drama of those years as a metaphor for life. Published in 2014, Nine Inches contains ten short stories written from the perspective of teenagers, adults, and senior citizens and, yet they all share a common theme: high school never really ends. Read more
“This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage”
Only writing kept me from being swept into the dust heap of third grade, and for this reason I not only loved writing, I felt a strong sense of loyalty to it. I may have been shaky about tying my shoes or telling time, but I was sure about my career, and I consider this certainty the greatest gift of my life.
“Here Beneath Low-Flying Planes”
Love the short story for what it is: a handful of glorious pages that take you someplace you never knew you wanted to go. Ann Patchett
Few people appreciate the short story although most are better written and clearly demand less of our time and attention than the novel. For me, short stories have always reminded me of those beautiful wooden Advent calendars with small doors. Beginning December 1st and continuing to December 24th, a numbered door is opened to reveal a small present – a ring, a chocolate, a key chain, perhaps, and sometimes a clever clue that if answered correctly leads to a treasured surprise: a scented soap, a kitchen utensil, a candle or a lovely writing pen. Each morning is filled with anticipation and then sheer happiness that lasts all day. Read more
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