Collected Poems
Moody, bleak, and often oh-so-dead-on, Philip Larkin seems to have written a poem to match just about any frame of mind or physical state
The Queen’s Gambit
The Queen's Gambit, by Walter Tevis, is one of those rare books that as soon as I had I finished it, I started reading it again. It's that good.
Vanity Fair Review,
I learned this past week that I share a birthday with an eminent Vanity Fair novelist, William Makepeace Thackeray
The Adventures of Frog and Toad
Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad Are Friends, published in 1970, is the first in a series of four books about these two famous friends
A Few Frightening Tales
I can’t let Halloween slip by without recommending a few stories that might make you check the recesses of your closet before going to bed
Paint it Black
Janet Fitch's Paint It Black is aptly named. Josie's is one of the hardest drinking and drugging women I've met in fiction in a while.
Paddington Here and Now
Hard to believe that Paddington Bear celebrates his fiftieth this year. What with one mishap after another, who'd have thought he'd have made it so far?
LaBute’s Razor
In Fat Pig and This Is How It Goes, LaBute gives voice to all those ugly things that propel the human tendency toward selfishness and approval-seeking.
The Oxford Murders
In The Oxford Murders, an unnamed narrator from Buenos Aires wins a scholarship to study algebraic topology at Oxford.
The Fairy Tales
The Fairy Tales are also appropriate, despite their darker elements, for children who have perhaps overindulged on the sugar-coated Disney versions
The Fairy Tales
The Fairy Tales are also appropriate, despite their darker elements, for children who have perhaps overindulged on the sugar-coated Disney versions
The Adventures of Frog and Toad
Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad Are Friends, published in 1970, is the first in a series of four books about these two famous friends
The Moonstone
The Moonstone is a very long tale about a precious gem stolen from the brow of a Hindu deity that wreaks havoc on an English family
Blaming
Blaming by Elizabeth Taylor is the story of an unlikely friendship that forms between Amy, an Englishwoman, and Martha, an American