Fiction Archive |
So Much Pretty: Cara Hoffman on Love, Sex and Common Enemies - Cara Hoffman’s debut novel, "So Much Pretty," is a nasty, ugly book --- a literary thriller about a missing girl who’s found murdered months later near her home --- but
Somerset Maugham: Ashenden - Raymond Chandler: "'Ashenden' is far ahead of any other spy story ever written… It reads as though there were always something vague and sinister just behind the curtain. In most
Somerset Maugham: Cakes and Ale - His parents were known as "Beauty and the Beast." Once someone asked the lovely Mrs. Maugham how she remained faithful to her ugly husband. "He never hurts my feelings," she said.
Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage - The Modern Library ranked this book 65th on its list of the best 100 English-language novels of the 20th Century. Who am I to disagree? It starts like this: The day broke gray
Somerset Maugham: The Moon and Sixpence - Spring in New York is specific for me. It's about important moments, people I'm seeing, memorable ideas and emotions. The Spring of 2023 is, for me, the Spring of Van
Somerset Maugham: The Razor’s Edge - Do you know anyone in his/her early 20s who knows exactly what career is just right --- and who proves it by scoring a plum job and working a zillion
SPECIAL EDITION: When was the last time this happened: I publish a review on Monday, the writer wins the Nobel Prize on Thursday? (It’s Annie Ernaux) - from the Times: The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday to Annie Ernaux, the French novelist whose intensely personal books have spoken to generations of women by highlighting incidents
Stuff Happens - Boots or no boots? That is the question. The last time we were on the verge of going to war in the Middle East, 36,000,000 people marched in 3,000 protests
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives - It took David Eagleman seven years to write the 40 mini-stories in “Sum.” And not because he has an Important Day Job, though he does --- he’s a neuroscientist who directs
Summer in the Hamptons: Time for “On Goldman Pond,” my short story about Goldman Sachs buying up Hamptons’ real estate. It could easily be non-fiction. Or science fiction. - The Solstice is upon us --- it's Peak Hamptons. A friend sent me an Instagram link, showing a container of guacamole from the Seafood Shop in Wainscott. It's $27 a
Summer Reading, 2015 - Summer. The catalogs I get from publishers send the message in a way I'll charitably call "timeless." But really, the summer offerings look to me like déjà vu all over
Sunrise Highway - Thirteen-year-old Johnny Pius was killed in 1979 in a way that is remembered on Long Island even now: 6 rocks stuffed down his throat. Homicide police interrogated four neighborhood teenagers;
Surrender, Dorothy - Ever want to read a good book, but not a great one? You know what I mean: a pleasant, not-too-demanding novel about the kind of people you might actually
Sutton - It’s not that I couldn’t put down J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar. It was more like, after reading it nonstop for a few hours, his memoir became part of me.
T. C. (Coraghessan) Boyle - Guest Butler Ann Connery Frantz won the Dr. Neila Seshachari Award in 2010 for best fiction for her short story, Samaritan. She writes a book club column for the Worcester,
Taffy Brodesser-Akner: Fleishman Is in Trouble - “Fleishman Is in Trouble” was the hot New York novel of summer 2019. What was Fleishman's trouble? As you might have guessed: a Manhattan white man’s midlife crisis and sexual
Tana French: The Trespasser - GUEST BUTLER NORA LEVINE owns the literary mystery/thriller corner of this site. That’s my good fortune — I can’t read everything — and yours too. Nora introduced us — well,
Tell Me A Riddle - Her father escaped from a Russian prison and, smartly, fled to the United States. He and his wife settled in Nebraska, where he worked as farmer, packinghouse worker
Temptation - After some of these days, I’d give a lot for a quick, mindless read. James Patterson? Nick Sparks? Can’t do it. But every once in a while a book is pressed upon
Testimony - A million years ago, I wrote a piece for the New York Times Magazine about a murder at Yale. The victim, a privileged young woman, was a student
