"Therein lies the joy"
LISTS & LINKS My husband and I met our daughters several weeks ago for lunch at Bubby’s in Tribeca, followed by a trip to the McNally...
The best book you've never heard of
At first I thought, My God, this book is phenomenal! So much motion in the language, such immediate, immersive scene-setting—and the...
All About Cheating
LISTS & LINKS Sometimes you read an excerpt of a memoir about adultery, and you think, Huh. That’s an interesting structure for a book....
"The time when we are closest to each other"
LISTS & LINKS I committed my first crime in a Baton Rouge grocery store when I was four years old. A pad of stationery caught my eye–pale...
Forgetting my own difficulties
LISTS & LINKS Sometimes life leads you down a William Landay rabbit hole. Landay is the author of Defending Jacob, a book I loved when it...
It's not the books, it's me.
I’ve had a rough reading stretch. Things I’d usually love I want to hurl across the room; things I wouldn’t normally read I’m adoring....
"The hope! The guilt! The quest for shelving!”
This morning I started State of the Union, Nick Hornby’s novel about a married couple in crisis. The husband has just turned and...
The Stores and Stories of a Southern Jewish Childhood
About a week ago, at an event for the Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience in New Orleans, I shared some stories from my childhood...
Literary Life Lessons
This was not my idea. Gianfranco Lentini, the producer of the podcast that I co-host with Eve Yohalem, suggested that she and I record...
A Tonic for Our Times
I had a quiet birthday earlier this month with my husband and daughters, a chocolate Betty Crocker cake (hard to beat), and perhaps my...
