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I began this blog with a post about the companionship a book provides. Tucked inside a handbag, a suitcase, a backpack, it’s there for us. That’s how I felt about Jon Krakauer’s “Under the Banner of Heaven,” a thick paperback I picked up, half-price, at a college bookstore. (The book I’d brought for the trip,

Unexpected book grief. Ian McEwan’s “Solar” is that rare thing: a wickedly funny satire about science featuring a wholly unlikeable main character. I loved every page of it. When we first meet Michael Beard he’s 53 and fat, a Nobel-prize winning physicist riding the high-fee, high-calorie lecture circuit. His (fifth!) marriage is in shambles and

It’s no fun throwing daggers at a flawed book but I spent $22 and a few days of my vacation making my way through Darin Strauss’s slender memoir, Half a Life. A better title would be: Half a Memoir. At 18, in the last days of high school’s senior year, Strauss drives his buddies to

I confess: I loved Borders. I spent many hours and countless dollars there. Not the store on North Avenue so much, but the one on Michigan Avenue. HIgh ceilings, four full floors of pricey real estate, a cafe with a spectacular view of the avenue, deep collections of poetry, travel, photography and fiction (who cares

Do you like television’s “Mad Men?” I sure do. Imagine my delight, then, to fall into Rona Jaffe’s first novel, “The Best of Everything” (1958). Set in the early Fifties, the story follows a handful of working girls at a Manhattan publishing house. Leisurely told, Jaffe (1931-2005) has a light touch with heavy themes. I

When was the last time you stumbled on, or into, a great restaurant? It’s the foodie’s curse to know about every new place to try, and why. That’s what put four of us in a far north Chicago neighborhood, hoping to score platters of mussels, venison ribs and craft beers at Hop Leaf (5148 N

I read and loved Kent Haruf’s “Plainsong” when it was released in 2000. Beautiful, spare, moving, grounded in time and place. About a pregnant teenager taken in by two old men, brothers, both bachelors. I weep just remembering their story; how they save her and how, in turn, she saves them. The other day I

Ah, the year’s first thunk: David Grossman’s “To the End of the Land.” So lauded, so bloated. To invest in ($26.95) and lug around (576 pages) one would expect, and should receive, a Franzen. In its simplest form, this is the story of an Israeli woman who gathers up her son’s father and takes him

Then a poet rocker, Patti Smith gave a reading at the small Catholic girls school I went to in Manhattan in the late 1970s. Most of us knew of her from our own late nights downtown, at CBGB’s or Irving Place or St. Mark’s Church. Getting her in the door and up into our auditorium

More book grief! Paul Auster’s “Sunset Park” grabbed me from its first sentence. “For almost a year now, he has been taking photographs of abandoned things.” He is Miles Heller, an Ivy League drop-out working foreclosures in Florida, inspecting abandoned homes for banks. He finds himself cataloguing, via photographs, the things people have left behind:

Can a book bring you solace? Zachary Mason’s “The Lost Books of the Odyssey” was a comfort to me. Everything about this slender tome — its tone, its elegant paper cover — soothed me during a physically trying time earlier this year. It’s small and slender, even in hardback, so I could easily carry it

Why do we give authors second chances? Once burned, why invest again? Because books, and their creators, are like lovers: we may have parted but we want to recall the initial attraction. Rose Tremain’s “The Road Home” disappointed. It was so predictable: an immigrant comes to London, sleeps in a corner, lucks into better and

“As simple as it sounds, gratitude is actually a demanding, complex emotion that requires ‘self-reflection, the ability to admit that one is dependent upon the help of others, and the humility to realize one’s own limitations.’” — Robert Emmons, University of California – Davis, Wall Street Journal, 11/23/10. Reading this made me want to voice

I’m one of those readers who notices obviously smart (read: successful) people beside the resort pool lapping up the latest novel from Philip Roth. He’s published 25 of ‘em since 1959, and twice won the National Book Award. Friends and family press his books on me. I’ve tried to like him! The simple premise of

A thriller that’s beautifully written and carefully told is a rare thing. “Man in the Woods,” by Scott Spencer, is that impossible-to-find read that satisfies on multiples levels. “Will he get away with it?” drives this story peopled by richly drawn, complex characters. Paul Phillips is a high-priced carpenter whose expertise in restoring old homes

I’m posting this out of frustration with the bland, dated advice in yesterday’s New York Times Travel section. A couple celebrating their 25th anniversary plans to spend a few days in Chicago in early December. What to do, where to go? Agreed. It will be cold. Let’s review the reasons to visit Chicago any time

My friend Margaret rates restaurants the same way I do: foremost, delicious food that’s authentic or inventive. After that, a memorable dining experience comes from setting, tables, chairs, spacing, service, plating, pacing, linens and silverware, noise, lighting, crowd, attitude, cost. Grub to gourmet, there’s more to dining than food. When Margaret declared The Purple Pig

What to read after Jonathan Franzen’s luminous, full-bodied “Freedom?” I tried one of Franzen’s favorites, Paula Fox’s “Desperate Characters” (1970) but found it episodic and curiously unsatisfying I picked up Malamud’s “The Assistant” (1957). Its first sentence sets the inviting but grim tone: “The early November street was dark though night had ended…” By the

Never mind Oprah’s endorsement: buy, borrow, beg, steal Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom.” I have a pre-Oprah copy that’s making its way through my household; my teenage son is reading it, my husband has next dibs, my college-age son is visiting this weekend. We’ll have to hide it from him. Does it matter that it’s become an

Can a book beat you up? I’ll carry the psychic bruises from John Updike’s “Rabbit, Redux” for a long, long time. I’m not complaining! I’d rather go for a wild ride than slog through some of the fiction I waded into this summer. I brought a stack to my favorite reading spot, a dock beside