Fiction Archive |
The Manny - It's easy to hate Holly Peterson. She was born rich --- her father, a lord of the Blackstone Group, is said to be worth $1.9 billion.
The ‘Snopes’ Trilogy (continued) - Wow, did I set off a bomb yesterday, or what? For those who missed it --- or those who were here but thought nothing was awry --- I suggested that Oprah may
The Adventures of Arsène Lupin, Gentleman-Thief - When Netflix launched Lupin, it became the first French series to make its top 10 list. The appeal was obvious --- this is a great time for a stylish
The Affliction - When we last saw Maggie Detweiler and her old friend Hope Babbin, the recently retired private school head and the socialite were investigating a murder at the Oquossoc Mountain Inn
The All of It: A Novel - Ann Patchett and a friend were browsing in a used bookstore when her friend spotted a musty copy of “The All of It.” Patchett, who had won the PEN/Faulkner Award
The Art of Racing in the Rain - When the movie opens on August 8th, that sound you'll hear is grown men sobbing. Here's reason #1: Here's reason #2: “In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high
The Ask - If a novel is 296 pages and 200 pages of it produce more laughs per page than anything you’ve read since Shining City and it costs $16.50 on Amazon, which means
The Blood of My Mother - A family of refugees walks a thousand miles to a new home where they’ve been told they can find land to farm. One of them, Eliza, is a young mixed-race
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse - "The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse" is a British book that has sold millions of books in England, a great many in the United States, and has
The Cat’s Table - Guest Butler Elizabeth Benedict is the author of five novels and The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. She recently edited the anthology Mentors, Muses & Monsters: 30 Writers
The Chocolate War - Why, we read them right away, don't we? That is, if we are Good Citizens and Concerned Readers. Well, and also if we're looking for some really good smut. Because of its “language
The Complete Saki - Guest Butler Margaret Quamme grew up in Massachusetts near a good used book store. She has a PhD in English from Brown. Early jobs included teaching transcendental meditation and selling
The Daughters of Mars - Guest Butler Nora Levine has a fondness for mysteries --- like In the Woods and Maisie Dobbs --- by authors who are unknown to me. And she has
The Day of the Jackal - “It is cold at six-forty in the morning on a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.” That’s
The Devil and Webster - I was on probation for a year at college --- the Vietnam War was raging, and Dow Chemical, the makers of napalm, had come to recruit. And along with a
The Diamond Necklace - Most days Guy de Maupassant is my favorite French writer, and Bel Ami is my favorite French novel. He apprenticed at the feet of Flaubert, and he learned his lesson:
The Driver’s Seat - HOW MURIEL SPARK WRITES: A video. Less than a minute long. Hilarious. To be shared with friends who agonize over a single paragraph. Click here. There is no writer more despicable
The Execution of Noa P. Singleton: A Novel - Maybe I’ve had bad luck, but most of the legal thrillers I’ve read suffer from the same ailments: pathologically neat plots, facts withheld for maximum effect, characters who make the
The Fault in our Stars - Have you seen the trailer for the movie adaptation of “The Fault in Our Stars?” Many have. Like: 20,000,000 views on YouTube. Did they respond? 35,000 messages. Who watched? Every smart teenager you know. And
The Four Just Men - On an ancient episode of "Law & Order," someone says, "There are two laws, one for the poor, one for the rich." Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy replies, "Not so
