Last week I read Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost, which was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2007 (which is especially impressive since it was O’Flynn’s first novel). It’s a quick read but it also packs an emotional punch, and I am still thinking about it days after finishing it. The novel begins in […]
I never thought I was a historical fiction lover until I discovered Hilary Mantel. She is a master at resurrecting worlds from the past, breathing life into them, and making well-told stories compelling in new ways. Wolf Hall is the first in a series of historical novels by Mantel focusing on Thomas Cromwell, who was […]
I grew up eight miles north of Detroit – eight miles north of Eight Mile Road, the dividing line between the city and the suburbs – in a comfortable, cute, safe, suburban city called Birmingham. Our little city’s neat streets were lined with trees, kids played outside, and everyone drove an American car. Birmingham was […]
In my effort not to be a complete ignoramus about the country I’m living in, I’ve been trying to read some South African literature and journalistic non-fiction. Being me, I’m doing much better with the fiction than the non-fiction. Whereas I haven’t been able to pick up Country of My Skull – a harrowing account […]
I had heard a lot of buzz about Jennifer Egan’s book A Visit from the Goon Squad before I read it: it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, it’s being turned into an HBO series, it’s incredible, etc. However, despite all of this buzz, I knew almost nothing about the structure or plot of the […]
Like many other people in the Western world, I’m absolutely fascinated by North Korea, the aggressive “hermit kingdom,” with its showpiece capital, goose-stepping soldiers, nuclear tests, and series of eccentric, wacktastic father-son dictators. I’ve seen pictures of Pyongyang, including the excellent series taken by my friend Sam Gellman, and I follow the news about Kim […]
My friend Karen recommended that I read David Ebershoff’s The 19th Wife, a novel focusing on, among other things, the apostasy from the Mormon Church of Brigham Young’s 19th wife, Ann Eliza Young. I find all things Mormon fascinating, so, despite being in the middle of no fewer than three other books, I downloaded The […]
[Programming note: my in-laws are in town, so Al and I will be busy having fun with them for the next little while. Blogging may be intermittent. Try to hold on without me.] Far from the Tree is a book that I had heard a lot about before I read it, and then once I […]
I’ve been absolutely devouring books lately, like a starving person who can only take in nutrition through the eyes. That’s a thing, right? One of the things that I love most about my new life as a writer is how much I get to read and consider it “work.” I’ve learned that when left to […]
I read the novel Cloud Atlas when I was back in San Francisco visiting my family. It took me almost a week to plow through, because it’s massive and complex and it can be a tad long-winded. But to my surprise, I really enjoyed it. You see, I didn’t expect to like Cloud Atlas, mostly because […]