It is awful that we judge books by their covers — and by their titles — but I have been told by people who know things that the title and cover are essential elements when trying to sell a book.  That’s why I knew I had been cleverly duped when I checked out a […]

I have never read two books in a row with characters who did something so mind-bogglingly unforgivable that I had a hard believing they could live with themselves.  In Apology by Jon Pineda, fourteen-year-old Mario destroys an entire family with a single toss of a football, runs away, and in a remarkable example of restraint […]

I liked The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving, by Jonathan Evison and I am going to go out and get his other books, All About Lulu and West of Here.kI’m a snot when it comes to books. There are so many really bad ones out there.  Sometimes I get about 60 pages into a book, and […]

Eric Nuzum’s memoir boils down to a sentence he writes near the very end of his book: “…I don’t believe that places are haunted, but I do believe that people are haunted.” And poor Eric Nuzum is haunted indeed. I don’t think that all the mind-numbing drugs and alcohol he ingested as a teenager were […]

    Louise Erdrich’s newest called The Round House was a surprise, even though I always carefully scour the New York Times Book Review section to be sure I don’t waste my time.  … I hate that.  I usually get 6-7 library books at a time so if I get a lousy one, I can […]

I really wanted only to write about books I love so that my friends could read them, too, but I must warn you about TOWNIE by Andre Dubus III.  You may have, like me, fallen in love with HOUSE OF SAND & FOG – the book and the movie – and you may be tempted […]

I began my love affair with Richard Ford (I wish!) when I read The Sportswriter in 1986. Actually I think it was Frank Bascombe I fell in love with, that hapless, overly intelligent hero of Ford’s triptych: The Sportswriter, Independence Day, and The Lay of the Land. Bascombe, twice divorced, grieved father of a son […]