Beautiful Ruins

I hadn't read a word by Jess Walter until this, but his books are consistently honored: Time Magazine's #2 novel of the year, finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the LA Times Book Prize, winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for best novel, New York Times notable...

Guy de Maupassant: Bel-Ami

George --- the kind of handsome guy from the country who, for lack of a better thing to do, joins the Army --- finshes his military service without a prospect in the world. He moves to the big city, because that's where opportunity lies. But he gets a lousy job and is totally frustrated. One evening he...

Weekend Butler: Timothy Snyder on the Hamas attack: Israel’s reaction is part of the plan. The answer to my Literary Quiz. The answer to weekend dinners: Beef Stew. A Louise Glück poem. Madonna’s secret weapon. A Leonard Cohen memory.

SUPPORTING BUTLER: You can become a patron of this site, and automatically donate any amount you please — starting with $1 — each month. The service that enables this is Patreon, and to go there, just click here. Again, thank you. A PERSONAL NOTE: I was in California last week, on a...

Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive

A few days before 9/11, Joel Meyerowitz --- famed for landscapes of extreme beauty and serenity --- took photographs of the World Trade Center. He planned to take more. Then the towers fell. He talked his way into the “pile” and set up his large-format wooden view camera. He often...

Thich Nhat Hanh: Being Peace

If we are not happy, if we are not peaceful, it follows that we cannot share peace and happiness with others, even those we love, those who live under the same roof. If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can smile and blossom like a flower, and everyone...

100 Journeys for the Spirit

Reading “100 Journeys for the Spirit ” a brisk (225 pages) photograph-driven guide with short essays by Pico Iyer, Michael Ondaatje, Paul Theroux and a few other writers, I was forced to admit that there were many stops on this guided tour of the planet’s most spirit-drenched destinations that I’d never...

SURVIVING THE PANDEMIC: A Mother’s Day like no other

I cheered this news: Irish pubs will be closed until August 10. Maybe longer. Imagine that: a sacred privilege of Irish citizenship, postponed. I was also cheered by this, on Twitter: I told a guy in the market that I was a nurse in a covid unit and I wear a...

“Game Changers” (“Someone asked me, ‘How could you get as strong as an ox without eating any meat?’ And my answer was, ‘Have you ever seen an ox eat meat?’”)

When was the last time I encouraged to watch something on Netflix? Never. But I encourage you to stream "Game Changers." Why? Because I read Nate Herpich's article, ‘Game Changers’ puts muscle behind plant-based diet, in the Harvard Gazette. Below, I reprint it. And I suggest three cookbooks that couldn't...

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society: A Novel

GUEST BUTLER: Elise O'Shaughnessy was my editor at Vanity Fair. Ah, those were the days. I'm not crazy about clubs, whether they'd have me as a member or not. And I don't like reading about book clubs, knitting circles, or sweet potatoes. So when the unfortunately titled "The...

Is Paris Burning?

GUEST BUTLER PIMM FOX, the creator and news anchor of "Taking Stock," a program of business interviews and financial news analysis broadcast daily on Bloomberg TV and radio, is currently the author of daily commentary and insight for Bloomberg Markets Live. His writing has appeared in Barron’s, The Wall Street...

Far from the Polar Vortex: Page-turners set in distant places

Books can take you anywhere. So says the old cliche. In brutally cold weather, these novels have taken me far away --- to warmer, sunnier places. Turn on the reading light. Settle in. And go.... Old Filth Jane Gardam didn’t start writing until she was 43 and the youngest of...

Mother’s Day, 2017

My mother is 100. For her epic birthday, we gave her the Amazon Echo. Now she has a new best friend: “Alexa,” who’s like a virtual Library of Alexandria. Sure, we made speeches and gave toasts. But my brother and I were quite clear: Parental events now require...

Craig Finn: We All Want the Same Things

This is Poetry Month, and I’ve been so distracted I haven’t pushed any favorite poets on you. And now, instead of a poet, I’m praising a musician. Worse yet, a singer-songwriter. And just to seal the bummer, the lyrics of Craig Finn's best new songs are lacerating. Some are stories...

Who wants it calmer? Who doesn’t! Here are 10 de-stressers.

Who wants it calmer? Me. Probably you, no matter how you feel about That Thing. No matter how much you enjoy the run-up to the holidays. No matter how confident you are that if the daily madness doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger. So here are 10 de-stressers. And...

Butler went on vacation, and all he left us were his favorite things

THE AMAZON LINK: There are now two ways to get to Amazon and support this site. Old: Click on the “Buy it from Amazon” link on any review and go anywhere on Amazon to shop. New: CLICK HERE. You don’t need to limit your shopping to stuff featured here or...

The Sun & The Moon & The Rolling Stones

You don’t care about The Rolling Stones? Read this book anyway. Were you sentient when Kennedy was assassinated? Then you watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show and, later, the Stones. You lived through Chicago ’68, the endless Vietnam War, Nixon, yellow ties on investment bankers, AIDS, Clinton and Monica,...

Books for a Book Club

A book club asked me to help them choose between “The Goldfinch” (771 pages), “All the Light We Cannot See” (551 pages) and “Go Set a Watchman” (a rejected first draft) --- three books that could kill any group. I sent along a year’s worth of what I’d call better...

The Rocks

Guest Butler Betsy Kane Ellis, when not reading, is a Life Enrichment Specialist at Jewish Family Service of St. Paul and an artist. She loves nothing more than putting books in the hands of young readers and finding “the next read” for friends and family. It surprises me not at...

Spring Break, 2014

It’s an unwritten law in the world of Manhattan private schools that if you don't take your kid away for at least a week in the last two weeks of March you will be visited by Social Services, maybe even the police. We are in compliance; we’re taking the child...

July 4, 2013: The Pursuit of Happiness

The Fourth of July finds us in Ely, Minnesota, where the road ends and the Boundary Waters begin. The child will, for the first time, get to drive a golf cart in the town’s parade. My wife will probably walk a gazillion miles. And I, true to form, will sit...