Books Archive |
James Salter: Last Night - Philip married Adele on a day in June. It was cloudy and the wind was blowing. Later the sun came out. It had been a while since Adele had married
James Salter: Last Night - The first rule of fiction is "Show. Don't tell." The best way to get you to read James Salter's stories is to serve one up. This is the title story
James Salter: Last Night (Take 2) - Writing about “A Christmas Carol,” I noted that “books change over time.” In the case of the classic Dickens story, I meant 170 years. Imagine my surprise when I picked
James Salter: Light Years - Guest Butler Pamela Erens won the Ironweed PressFiction Prize for The Understory. Visit her at her site. Joe Fox, a legendary editor at Random House, was once asked which
Jane Fonda: The Private Life of a Public Woman - Google "Jane Fonda +hate" and you get 680,000 results. Jane Fonda is an actress in her late 70s who had her last box office hit thirty years ago. So why is
Jane Gardam: Old Filth - Jane Gardam didn’t start writing until she was 43 and the youngest of her three children was off to school. Now 91, she has published 25 books. She’s the only
January 1963: Mary Meyer badgers JFK to do more for the poor - In January, I published a fact-based novel, JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story. It was a reimagining of the diary that Kennedy’s only serious lover kept during his
Jean-Georges Vongerichten: Home Cooking with Jean-Georges: My Favorite Simple Recipes - The movie was a block away, we were already at ABC Carpet, we had an hour --- why not have a quick dinner at ABC Kitchen? For so-called sophisticates, we were
Jennifer Post: Pure Space: Elegant Minimalism - I'd never heard of Jennifer Post until I read about her book party in New York Social Diary. The
Jesse Kornbluth/Head Butler Creative Services - For decades, writers and would-be writers alike have asked me to read their work before they send it out. Maybe it’s because I was an English major who read shelves
JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story - Can it really be 60 years since John Kennedy was assassinated? If you are a Senior Boomer, November 22, 1963 marked the end of your childhood and the start of
Joan Didion (1934 – 2021) - Joan Didion died at her home of complications from Parkinson's. She was 87. Joan was intensely private, but she allowed her nephew Griffin Dunne to make a documentary, "Joan Didion:
Joan Didion: Let Me Tell You What I Mean - Joan Didion died on December 23, 2021. Sanctification was instant, and not surprising --- Didion was an icon for discerning readers, feminists, and those who discovered her more recently in
Joan Miro: I Work Like a Gardener - If you’re not a foodie, tapas gets old fast --- by our third day in Barcelona, my daughter was Googling Italian restaurants. Yes, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia is the eighth wonder
Joan Schenkar (1942 – 2021): a writer talented enough to write “The Talented Miss Highsmith” - I met Joan Schenkar in 1970. She had graduated from Bennington, where she raised considerable hell, and as there was surely more hell she could raise in the college community,
Joe Allen (1934 – 2021): He called himself “a fifth-rate Broadway icon.” Not so. He was one of New York’s greats. - Joe Allen, who died the other day at 87, got the Great Man send-off in the paper of record: a long and admiring obituary and a follow-up of testimonials from
John Besh: My Family Table: A Passionate Plea for Home Cooking - We gave away 50 cookbooks the other week. Now I see we could also have given away “The Joy of Cooking.” Eighteen million copies of “The Joy of Cooking” have
John Besh: My New Orleans: The Cookbook - Love shrimp? Crayfish? Crab? Oysters? Gumbo? Fresh strawberries? Well, here is your new Bible of a cookbook: 200 recipes, French by nature, New Orleans by nurture. Like the Bible, it’s weighty:
John F. Kennedy: A Nation of Immigrants - “Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.” - Oscar Handlin, in “The Uprooted," winner of a
John F. Kennedy’s “Rosebud” — could it be a book: “Melbourne,” by David Cecil? - Jack Kennedy didn’t know Martha Gellhorn, but he invited her to his inaugural ball. Why did she score that coveted invitation? Somehow he had learned about the season in 1935
