Books Archive

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera - “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Col. Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. At that time Macondo

Garner’s Quotations: A Modern Miscellany - One of the perks of editing this site is the friends you make. At some point in our middle-middle age, I made the acquaintance of Bill Novak, the most distinguished

George Orwell: The Orwell Reader - SUPPORTING BUTLER: Since the start of 2023, Amazon seems to have gone on a quiet campaign to rid itself of small sites that, collectively, generate revenue worth noticing — and

George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic - I’ve written dozens of pieces for House & Garden and Architectural Digest without once hearing George Stacey’s name. That is not quite how he planned it, but close. When he

Georgia: A novel of Georgia O’Keeffe - When it comes to culture, Americans are like baby birds --- we like our nutrition pre-chewed. So if I wanted to learn about Hadley Richardson, perhaps Ernest Hemingway’s greatest love,

Gerald and Sara, Scott and Zelda, Ernest Hemingway… and Jerome Robbins - Amanda Vaill is a friend of many years, but I am also among her biggest fans --- as a biographer, she’s peerless. I came to this conclusion after reading Everybody

Ghost Wall: A Novel - Walls? They’re in the news, I hear. So a novel called “Ghost Wall,” by a writer who gets 5-star reviews, has a certain interest. And it’s 144 pages --- you

Gift Guide: A Child’s Holiday in America - Always on Christmas night there was music. An uncle played the fiddle, a cousin sang "Cherry Ripe," and another uncle sang "Drake's Drum." It was very warm in the

Gilded Mountain - “Gilded Mountain” is told in the first person, and Sylvie Pelletier is a heroine and a half. It takes her 464 pages to tell her story because the frame of

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon — and the Journey of a Generation - 525 pages about Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon --- and this is the beach book for smart women? I'm not kidding. This book is that good. And that addictive. Just

Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans - Americans like to think that baseball and football rule the world of sport. Soccer, anyone? Americans like to believe that the Indianapolis 500 --- it’s called The Greatest Spectacle in Racing, and

God’s Hotel: A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine - It almost always annoys me when someone who isn’t a professional writer produces a great book, but Victoria Sweet wrote one of the most addictive books I’ve read in years,

Gone Girl - I’m less than fond of mystery/thrillers, and yet I stayed up until 4 AM to finish Gillian Flynn’s “Gone Girl.” And if I told you too much about it, you’d

Gore Vidal (1925-2012) - "Never pass up a chance to have sex or appear on television," Gore Vidal said. In his 86 years, he claimed to have taken his own advice, and on the

Graham Greene: The End of the Affair - Graham Greene was one of the masters of 20th century fiction, and “The End of the Affair” is one of his best novels. Almost everyone I know who has read

Graham Greene: The Quiet American - They made a movie of Graham Greene's novel, The End of the Affair, starring Ralph Fiennes and Julianne Moore. It was set in London during World War II, and

Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth about Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers - I came close to not graduating from high school because I was a total idiot in Science. At college, to satisfy the Science requirement, I took Evolution because it was

Grandma’s Dead: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals - Grandma's Dead: Breaking Bad News with Baby Animals Amanda McCall & Ben Schwartz “Afraid to tell your girlfriend her ass looks fat?” “Need to let your neighbors know you're a registered sex

Great Houses, Modern Aristocrats - When we tell our family stories, most of us can’t go back more than three or four generations before we’re talking about an ancestor who crossed an ocean. Not so

Great? Or snobbish? You make the call. - A new friend and I were walking, and the conversation turned to Venice, and because I had a few tidbits still accessible in my fading memory, I mentioned Carlo Scarpa.