I recently returned from a trip to London so I am currently all things Anglophile. While I was there I had opportunity to see a play by playwright, novelist, memoirist…
I recently read, or I should say reread, Michael Chabon’s 2000 Pulitizer Prize winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavelier and Clay. Being a lover of both literature and comic…
So I recently finished Charles Dickens’s second novel, Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress which would seem to justly deserve its subtitle. I first became aware of Dickens’s story…
Gore Vidal may have died last July, but he left behind a body of work that continues to speak volumes, both politically and ethically (if you can really separate the…
I’ve been tied up with moving and getting myself resettled back in New York City for the last few weeks, so I’ve neglected not only my writing, but my blogging. …
The other night, a kind friend of mine was good enough to invite me over for a screening of the The Swimmer, the 1968 film adaptation of John Cheever’s short…
So, at this point you may be asking yourself, “Doesn’t this guy ever read anything new?” And the answer is yes, I occasionally do. Last Christmas I read Stephen King’s…
So after watching something of a murder mystery in The Singing Detective, I thought I might put what I was reading aside for a bit and pick up a real…
So, I’ve been reading two books recently, Oliver Twist and Richard Ford’s new novel Canada (I seem to have a thing about children who are forced to parent themselves), but…
I recently discovered Levi Asher’s Literary Kicks blog and read his piece “Why Reading Is Always Social.” It surprises me that this is even an argument, as reading seems to…
I spent part of this afternoon reading the first few chapters of Lower East Side Memories: A Jewish Place in America by Hasia R. Diner a professor of American Jewish…
Today I read a terrific graphic novel Unterzakhn written and illustrated by Leela Corman (usually I refer to the ones I read as comic books, but this is truly a…
In every obituary, article or essay that I read about Nora Ephron last week, many of her closest friends and associates spoke highly of her as a writer, director and…
There’s an interesting opinion piece by Daniel Mendelsohn in today’s NY Times: A Closet by Another Name. I bring this up because (and I only found this out today) Mendelsohn…
The one thing I don’t like about reading the NY Times online is that I tend to miss a lot of articles I might have perused in the paper edition…
I started reading The Lover by Marguerite Duras today. I’m only about halfway through (I’m on page 69!) so I don’t really have much to say (yet), but I did…
So a little more today about The Jewel in the Crown and Paul Scott. It’s the first part of Scott’s tetralogy (look it up) The Raj Quartet, set in India…
Today I’ve been looking through Deborah Hopkinson’s Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York: 1880-1924. It’s a terrific book which traces the early lives of five…
Welcome to my page. I’ll be posting about my writing and my reading. Hopefully in that order. I’m currently reading The Jewel in the Crown by Paul Scott and the…
