It happened that I was looking for an audio book, so I scrolled down the availables at my public library resolved to choose the first thing that got my attention. “Educated” was a big deal when it came out several years ago, with both commercial and literary appeal. I even had a copy in the house that I had found on the street, but got rid of it in the Great Winnowing before my move to Seoul, and before I found the time to read it. Tara Westover had an unusual childhood, to put it mildly, and has acquired the strength of mind and command of prose to relate the story of her growing up in a very ..read more

A strange melange of Agatha Christie (fiendishly ingenious country house murder), Sherlock Holmes (amateur sleuths, bromance) and Winnie the Pooh (a delight in verbal repetition, low-stakes madcap adventure), this book was ridiculous yet delightful. A. A. Milne published it, his only murder mystery, in 1922, a few years before he hit it big in the children’s book world. I did not realize when I was listening to it that the murder mystery came first, and I kept being struck by how much the dynamic of Anthony Gillingham (the Sherlock figure) and Bill Beverly (the Watson) reminded me of Christop ..read more

I “read” LESS as an audiobook, which may have affected how it worked on me. Though a short book, it took weeks to get through, chiefly because of all the limits when I allow myself to listen to an audiobook. (Mostly I listen in the gym — but then I got Covid and stopped going to the gym. On walks — but only when alone, because otherwise it’s antisocial. Not in bed at night, because I fall asleep and miss things. Not on my commute, because I am unreasonably afraid of an earbud falling out of my ear and into some irretrievable place. Etc.) So I kept putting it aside for days at a time and then ..read more

Yesterday I found my review of WHAT’S BRED IN THE BONE had vanished from Goodreads. I immediately suspected it had been censored because of my choosing an impolite label for this book. Today, though, it is back. I must therefore blame Goodreads’ squirrelly platform instead. But I am not sure. So I am posting what I wrote about this book, back in September 2023, because though it was not particularly brilliant, I want to remember what I said. Also, I think this book deserves to be better known. Without further ado, I bring you WHAT’S BRED IN THE BONE by Allen Grant. The first book in a long whi ..read more

Twenty-four days into 2024, I’m renewing my resolution to post a brief review here of everything I read, instead of just posting on Goodreads. Because, first, why should I work for Goodreads for free, when I can instead work for myself for free here on WordPress? Second, my reviews seem to be vanishing off Goodreads. I definitely wrote down some thoughts about Grant Allen’s “What’s Bred in the Bone,” the most insane book I read in 2023, and now my review is gone! Vanished down the memory hole as if it never existed. I don’t think I had deep thoughts about it, but now I might as well now have h ..read more

I learned about My Search for Warren Harding from a story in The New York Times. It was originally published in the 1970s and soon fell into obscurity, along with its author, though becoming sometimes of a cult classic for its edgy humor. By chance a few years ago it fell into the hands of people influential enough to get it published again and given a second chance at fame. Even better: Robert Plunket, in his 80s, is still alive and gets to enjoy his book’s revival. His new introduction had me laughing out loud, so I had high hopes for the actual book. Alas, these were only partly realized ..read more

My feelings about Henry James are mixed, and reading “The Aspern Papers” made me remember why. It’s everything I love about Henry James and everything that I can’t love about him, in one short book. The story is fairly simple. A man — a writer, a critic, and devotee of a certain long-dead poet named Aspern — comes to suspect that a long-ago love interest of the long-dead poet (who died young), now very old and living in a small, isolated way in Venice, is in possession of papers that would change the face of Aspern scholarship. She has already forcefully rejected people who have reached out to ..read more

I’ve been sadly neglecting this blog, but have resolved to revive it, if only to keep track of my reading. The things that I write on Goodreads (an increasingly squirrelly platform; and has anyone else noticed it is giving inaccurate dates for when a book was read?) will now also go here, starting today, on the 206th anniversary of the way-too-early death of Jane Austen (even though she is, for practical purposes, immortal). Starting with my most recent read, The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (a great author name, very nice balance of syllables). Read more: Hello Again THE SPARROW is a novel w ..read more

  I love 19th-century British literature, and lately I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the world and the works of the Brontes in particular. So I was honored to be invited to write about “John Eyre” as part of a virtual book tour for its author, Mimi Matthews.  As the title suggests, “John Eyre” is an homage to “Jane Eyre,” a novel that created a sensation as soon as it came out in 1847 and has kept readers enthralled ever since, with its mystery and danger, its hints of the supernatural, its romance and coming-of-age elements. It is a story narrated by a woman, in an age wher ..read more

    It was great to be back. I read The Golem and the Jinni not long after it came out in 2013 and at least once again since. Though I don’t remember every detail now, what I can’t forget is how it gave me the feeling of dwelling in an an entire and completely realized world, one that felt rich with historical details but also intimate and outside of time, one I was sad to leave. Chava and Ahmad were greenhorns in 1900 New York, and the novel was both a slow-burn love story and an immigrant tale of learning to adapt and fit in. The narrator was omniscient and a little at arm’s length ..read more