I like to write, and read, a life story. Childhood, education, influences, love affairs, disappointments, a troubled marriage, triumphs and recognition: Gail Levin’s biography of painter Lee Krasner is a masterfully told story of a great American life. Krasner (1908-1984) was born to Russian immigrants in then-rural Brooklyn. Her scholarly father sold fish from a

The New York Times Book Review last Sunday ran a q & a with the editors of the Norton Anthology, that brick of a book we all lugged around during high school and college. This was the last question: Why study literature? M.H. Abrams: Ha — Why live? Life without literature is a life reduced

The best movies about women — Tar and Women Talking — didn’t get much love at the box office, or at last week’s Academy Awards.  So, let’s spread the word about new fiction I’ve loved that’s by and about women.  Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus is laugh-out-loud funny. That’s not to say it’s not