This book needs no introduction other than the first two sentences of its introduction: “This is the true story of the most singular prison break ever recorded—a clandestine wartime operation that involved no tunneling, no weapons, and no violence of any kind. Conceived during World War I, it relied on a scheme so outrageous it should never have worked: Two...
I had read two of the stories in George Saunders’ new collection, Liberation Day, already. Several of the stories had run in The New Yorker, and I had read them there. At first I was bummed about that. I had this pristine library book before me, and I wanted to enjoy all of it. But some of it I had...
Someone asked a dear loved one of mine whether she was woke. She said no. She was not woke. I asked her why she told the person that she was not woke. It was then that she admitted that she did not know what the word meant. She assumed it meant something along the lines of “Millennial youngster who uses...
I give this story collection the highest number of stars. Each story in Night of the Living Rez, by Morgan Talty, describes a different time in the life of a male resident of an Indian reservation in Maine. Some stories describe scenes from his childhood, while others are about his adulthood. The stories do not appear in chronological order; the...
I was recently interviewed by a reporter who was writing an article about local Silent Book Clubs. It’s an exciting feeling, to be considered important enough to be interviewed by a reporter. Have you ever been approached by a reporter for an interview? It’s a heady experience. However, like most heady experiences, it’s also something to be cautious of. You...
“But freedom isn’t speaking your mind freely. Freedom is having the money to go to Mexico.” —Nell Zink, Mislaid Taken out of context, this quote has the ring of wisdom. Freedom isn’t freedom of speech, it’s money. Cha-ching, bada bing. Thought provoking, indeed. But while reading the brilliant novel Mislaid, by Nell Zink, you won’t be able to help but...
Everyone knows that exercise is good for you (as noted in my last blog post). But do you know why that’s the case? What’s the science behind why we must exercise to stay healthy? Do you know how people in modern, first-world countries compare to traditional hunter-gatherers in their exercise levels? Do you know how modern humans compare to our...
“When Marek reached the bottom of the mountain and looked out at the dark pasture, he saw his old home and smelled the stench of death floating on the slow breeze as he walked toward it.” —Ottessa Moshfegh, Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh is one of my favorite living authors. I will read anything by her. Her prose is both straightforward and...
The Sackler family is known for its intense secrecy . . . as well as, ironically, for getting their family name prominently installed in famous art museums and universities in the U.S. and abroad through philanthropic gifts. Despite the family’s secrecy, journalist Patrick Radden Keefe somehow obtained the intimate and detailed information needed to write the tour de force Empire...
One of the most unique and gripping books I have read in the past few months is called Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee, by Casey Cep. The first half of the book is a gripping, true-crime story about a preacher who murdered his relatives to collect on life insurance policies. The second half of...
No one knows what to think about Haruki Murakami. That is, everyone knows what to think, but no one can agree. The Japanese fiction author is both beloved and pooh-poohed around the world, by throngs of admiring fans and those who hold their noses in the air. Love him or hate him, he has a new book out called First...
Klara is a robot with sophisticated artificial intelligence. The sun is the sun: beautiful, replenishing, worthy of worship. Kazuo Ishiguro is a master storyteller most famous for his brilliant novel The Remains of the Day (1989), which has many similarities to Klara and the Sun (2021). In both novels, written an astonishing 32 years apart, the protagonist is wholeheartedly dedicated...
Have you ever read a book with no paragraph breaks, the entire 289 pages consisting of one extremely long paragraph? If you take my advice, you are about to. Dead Souls is the title of a famous nineteenth-century Russian novel by Nikolai Gogol, but that’s not the Dead Souls I’m writing about today. The Dead Souls I’m writing about today...
After David Foster Wallace’s untimely death, a partially completed manuscript was discovered in his office. His editor undertook the difficult task of sifting through the mess of scattered pages and notes and assembling them into the unfinished novel The Pale King. The editor had to decide what to leave in and what to leave out, how to edit the pages...
Katherine E. Standefer had a problem. A device implanted in her heart was giving her massive shocks when it wasn’t supposed to. She was due for heart surgery, but she didn’t have health insurance. She was forced to give up the life she had loved as a rugged outdoorswoman, due to a genetic heart condition. But her main problem, above...
Of all of Sally Rooney’s novels, her first novel, Conversations With Friends, is the nearest and dearest to my heart. It’s a beautiful story with a surprising conclusion and lots of heartbreak in between. The protagonist is a young college student. This passage, from early in the novel, reveals her life situation in an unusual way: “When I got back...
Here is one of my favorite passages from Normal People, Sally Rooney’s second novel: “When he talks to Marianne he had a sense of total privacy between them. He could tell her anything about himself, even weird things, and she would never repeat them, he knows that. Being alone with her is like opening a door away from normal life...
It’s hard not to notice that the pace of media has been increasing over our lifetimes. Does anyone out there remember when the news came at certain designated times of day, and could not be accessed at any other time? TV news had certain timeslots. Newspapers came out one a day, or once a week. Internet was not a thing....
OMG, OMG, OMG. Everyone is talking about the Irish novelist Sally Rooney, . . . and now so am I. I got caught in her web and could not stop reading. I read all three of her novels in a tear, and I loved each one to pieces. Reading Sally Rooney makes me feel like a girl again, eagerly clutching...
When I think of ballet, I think of fit people performing incredible feats of strength and flexibility. For instance, I think of people doing the splits, walking on their toes, and spinning around and around. I also think of grace, exactness, and delicacy. I generally do not think of this: “At the end of Opus Jazz I get tossed off...
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Books previewed
Unwinding Anxiety Judson Brewer
The Confidence Men Margalit Fox
Liberation Day George Saunders
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
The Journalist and the Murderer Janet Malcolm
Mislaid Nell Zink
Exercised Daniel E. Lieberman
Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh
Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe
Furious Hours Casey Cep
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
The Confidence Men Margalit Fox
Liberation Day George Saunders
Pandora’s Jar Natalie Haynes
Night of the Living Rez Morgan Talty
The Journalist and the Murderer Janet Malcolm
Mislaid Nell Zink
Exercised Daniel E. Lieberman
Lapvona Ottessa Moshfegh
Empire of Pain Patrick Radden Keefe
Furious Hours Casey Cep
First Person Singular Haruki Murakami
Klara and the Sun Kazuo Ishiguro
Dead Souls Sam Riviere
The Pale King David Foster Wallace
Lightning Flowers Katherine E. Standefer
Beautiful World, Where Are You / Normal People / Conversations With Friends Sally Rooney
Swan Dive Georgina Pazcoguin
A Passage North Anuk Arudpragasam
Lucky Jim Kingsley Amis
Projections Karl Deisseroth
The Indian Lawyer James Welch
Atomic Habits James Clear
The History of Philosophy A. C. Grayling
Dusk, Night, Dawn Anne Lamott
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick
Nothing to See Here Kevin Wilson
Change Damon Centola
Homeland Elegies Ayad Akhtar
Becoming Attached Robert Karen
Piranesi Susanna Clarke
Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
Solitary Albert Woodfox
Girl, Woman, Other Bernardine Evaristo
Enlightenment by Trial and Error Jay Michaelson
Death in Her Hands Ottessa Moshfegh
The Cooking Gene Michael W. Twitty
The First Bad Man Miranda July
Upheaval Jared Diamond
A Journal of the Plague Year Daniel Defoe
Creatures Crissy Van Meter
Indelicacy Amina Cain
Say What You Mean Oren Jay Sofer
Habits of a Happy Brain Loretta Graziano Breuning
Bad Behavior, This Is Pleasure Mary Gaitskill
The Brother Gardeners Andrea Wulf
Severance Ling Ma
How to Be an Antiracist Ibram X. Kendi
The Museum of Modern Love Heather Rose
Why I Write George Orwell
The Woman Destroyed Simone de Beauvoir
Educated Tara Westover
The Gift Hafiz
The Collected Schizophrenias Esmé Weijun Wang
Your Duck Is My Duck Deborah Eisenberg
Sapiens Yuval Noah Harari
Milkman Anna Burns
Under the Banner of Heaven Jon Krakauer
Waiting for Bojangles Olivier Bourdeaut
A Mind Unraveled Kurt Eichenwald
Eugénie Grandet Honoré de Balzac
The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
The Bookshop Penelope Fitzgerald
Digital Minimalism Cal Newport
The Sisters Brothers Patrick deWitt
Dare to Lead Brené Brown
My Year of Rest and Relaxation Ottessa Moshfegh
Almost Everything Anne Lamott
Born to Run Christopher McDougall, Bruce Springsteen
The Ladies’ Paradise Émile Zola
The World Beyond Your Head Matthew B. Crawford
All the Birds, Singing Evie Wyld
Barracoon Zora Neale Hurston
Dandelion Wine Ray Bradbury
JavaScript & jQuery Jon Duckett
Home Fire Kamila Shamsie
The Weather Detective Peter Wohlleben
Play It As It Lays Joan Didion
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Mark Manson
Convenience Store Woman Sayaka Murata
Perfect Me Heather Widdows
Sorry to Disrupt the Peace Patty Yumi Cottrell
Why Buddhism Is True Robert Wright
What Is Real? Adam Becker
Kudos Rachel Cusk
The Days of Abandonment Elena Ferrante
F*cked Corinne Fisher & Krystyna Hutchinson
Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine Alan Lightman
Wide Sargasso Sea Jean Rhys
Infinite Jest David Foster Wallace
A Room of One’s Own Virginia Woolf
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