Books: The Tender Hour of Twilight, A Memoir
It’s worth repeating: I love to read, and write, a life. A memoir of the Paris/New York life of Richard Seaver, an American publisher, is hard to give up. What a man, what a life. Seaver (1926 – 2009) was teaching math and coaching wrestlers at the Pomfret School in Connecticut (a funny, charming chapter)
(...)Books: Start and Stop Reading
Wow. How many doorstoppers in a row? First, Peter Orner’s “Love and Shame and Love.†A great title! His story is multigenerational but so choppily told I lost interest in every character. Next, Anna Solomon’s “The Little Bride.†Another great title, well reviewed. I put it down two-thirds of the way through. If you put
(...)Life: The Year’s Best
With the year coming to a close it’s a good time to reflect on the offerings that enriched my days and nights. I read newspapers, magazines, works of nonfiction, but my true love is fiction. In these three novels, the characters and situations were so alive to me I didn’t want their stories to end: Jonathan
(...)Books: Unlikely Loves
Should you trust the narrator? Depends on the book. Two I read this summer set me up to believe that its main character, and narrator, was seeking to repair a significant love (a wife, a daughter). Each starts with a similar premise — I need to get her back — then widens in the telling,
(...)Art & Food: New York
I had three days in New York and did what I always do in a great world city: eat well and see art. First stop: John’s Pizzeria (278 Bleeker St.) Baked in a coal-fired brick oven, it really is the world’s best thin crust. John’s is two small rooms; a line trails down Bleeker Street
(...)Books: The Girls of Summer
The New York Times ran a breezy piece recently about summer reads aimed at women. I turned to it excitedly: I’m a girl, I love to read. Surely there’d be something on the list for me. Nope. What to read during the summer? Do we really seek out “lighter†reads in the warmer months? I
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