Books Archive

The Collaborative Habit: Life Lessons for Working Together - The first time I took the elevator to Twyla Tharp’s penthouse was a grey, chilly morning in early April. We sat in her minimalist office that overlooked a terrace that

The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future - “Nature always bats last.” That old warning about our degrading environment no longer seems to apply. Now Nature bats every day. Drought, storms, melting ice and rising oceans --- the bad

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 Conde Nast Traveler Book of Unforgettable Journeys: Great Writers on Great Places - In mid-winter, the clever FM stations play “Marrakech Express.” The dull ones play “If You’re Going to San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair).” I prefer

The Confidence Men: How Two Prisoners of War Engineered the Most Remarkable Escape in History - Margalit Fox --- you know her byline because, over two decades, she wrote 1,400 memorable obituaries for The New York Times --- loves great stories that have been overlooked. A

The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women - Elisabeth Badinter has been voted “the most important intellectual” in France. Why, you wonder, would American women hate a French intellectual? Scorn, sure. Be intimated by, understood. But hate? Try this: Badinter is

The Creative Habit - A few years ago, I helped Twyla Tharp with The Collaborative Habit, the sequel to this book. It was a learning experience on several levels, but mostly this: the intensity

The Dangerous Book for Boys - The Dangerous Book for Boys Conn Iggulden & Hal Iggulden

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 Dirty Life: Farming, Food, and Love - Ruth Fecych, one of New York's best book editors, handled a friend’s manuscript so deftly I asked her if we could possibly work together. Time passed. I was sure she

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" is a whip cracking just in front of my face, a cosmic wake-up call, a reminder of something I know well and say all

The Dog Dialed 911 - The Dog Dialed 911

The Drama of the Gifted Child - "The Drama of the Gifted Child" was published in 1979. My friends and I got to it around 1983. I recall several lively conversations about it. In memory, one thing

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe - The Russians had been driven out of Afghanistan, and now the militias that had defeated them were in charge. The Mujahideen were fierce and they were cruel. And they hated women. That

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 Economist Book of Obituaries - No fun is more welcome than unlikely fun. I never thought “The Economist” and “obituaries” would find themselves in the same sentence. But English newspapers are uncommonly imaginative.