10182 results were found.

Why Bestselling Author Brad Parks Supports the Independent

Brad Parks — the international bestselling author of such thrillers as Say Nothing, The Last Act, Interference, and The Girl Next Door — knows a thing or two about books. He also knows why the nonprofit Independent is so important to the world of books! To hear why Parks supports…

The National Book Festival

Registration is now open for the 20th annual National Book Festival, to be held online Sept. 25th-27th. Children and teen content will be released on Friday, Sept. 25th, and all other content will be released on Saturday, Sept. 26th. Participating authors include Tomi Adeyemi, John Grisham, Laura Bush, Kali Fajardo-Anstine,…

Subversive Verse

I am my father’s creation I have lived my life to continue that creation But I had to know the extent of his vision before I could focus in on my own The vision for the Profane Comedy sprang from two sources, one, my father’s life, a bittersweet experience, and,…

Celebrating a Civil Rights Story

Sharon Robinson, daughter of the late baseball great Jackie Robinson, is recipient of the 2020 Grateful American Book Prize for Child of the Dream: A Memoir of 1963, which reveals her tempestuous 13th year living amid the fluctuating fortunes of the Civil Rights movement. Earning honorable mentions this year are…

We Get the Help and YOU Get the Gift!

We need your help! It’s been a brutal year for nonprofits like us, especially since covid-19 nixed the Washington Writers Conference last spring, our biggest source of revenue. Your donations keep us publishing the reviews, author Q&As, and features you’ve come to love. Now, they mean rewards for you, too!…

Meet Martha S. Jones

As part of our efforts to encourge voter registration, we invite you to join us for a conversation with Martha S. Jones about her new book, Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All. This timely discussion will talk about the importance of…

“Crossing Borders”

Arts journalism takes center stage during an upcoming virtual event hosted by the DC-based nonprofit Day Eight. Its third annual Arts Journalism Conference, “Crossing Borders,” which runs Sept. 21-25, features workshops, speeches, and panel discussions, all presented via Zoom and led by industry and media professionals. “There’s always been a…

Challenge and Ambition

This month, I’m focusing on four poetry collections that, in various ways, challenge and stretch the reader’s expectations in terms of content, form, or both. Two of the books cast a wide net, tackling content from the worlds of biology or politics, while the other two drill deep, employing either…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with David Stebenne

A professor of history and law at Ohio State, Dr. David Stebenne is also author of the academic books Arthur J. Goldberg: New Deal Liberal and Modern Republican: Arthur Larson and the Eisenhower Years. His new book, written for a more general audience, is Promised Land: How the Rise of…

A Trenchant Trickster

Although the legendary trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel reputedly lived in the 14th century, German author Daniel Kehlmann sets Tyll during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) — a period of great political, economic, and social instability. For the inhabitants of rural villages, life is fraught with uncertainty. Crops fail, neighbors are treacherous,…

An Interview with John Adam Wasowicz

John Adam Wasowicz has used his 30 years’ worth of experiences as both a prosecutor and defense lawyer to create his Mo Katz legal mystery series. In April 2020, Wasowicz took the advice from an op-ed in the Washington Post that suggested keeping a pandemic journal. But instead of just…

P&P Live!: Ayad Akhtar in Conversation with Evan Osnos

Ayad Akhtar is the author of American Dervish, published in over 20 languages and named a Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2012. As a playwright, he has written “Junk” (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Kennedy Prize for American Drama, Tony nomination); “Disgraced” (Lincoln Center, Broadway; Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony nomination); “The…

It’s Complicated

Latinx Heritage Month comes with a mix of emotions for me. On the one hand, it feels like a perfect opportunity to encourage non-Latinx readers to pick up more Latinx-authored books. On the other, as a Latinx reader myself, it stings to see stacks of these books suddenly appear all…

Agatha Christie + Sherry Club

Join us for our next virtual Agatha Christie book club! Chantal Tseng and Hannah from Loyalty will lead a discussion of our latest Agatha Christie read! You can order sherry, the book, tea, or just tip the staff for your ticket level choice below! ABOUT THE BOOK: One minute, silly…

A Patriotic Pick: September 2020

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Grateful American™ Book Prize judge Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of the New-York Historical Society: Washington: A Life by Ron Chernow. The father of our country becomes fully three-dimensional…

From Page to Screen…and Back

Bingeing during covid-19 restrictions has become a national pastime as we are largely prohibited from doing much else. Streaming video is a godsend, and our Zoom calls with friends often revolve around what we’re watching, exchanging tips, and sharing opinions. There’s a role for books in all this, too. It’s…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Wendy Williams

Award-winning journalist and author Wendy Williams has written several books, including The Horse: The Epic History of Our Noble Companion, Kraken: The Curious, Exciting, and Slightly Disturbing Science of Squid, and Cape Wind: Money, Celebrity, Energy, Class, Politics, and the Battle for Our Energy Future. Her most recent work is…

Meet Fredrik Backman

Join Frederick County Public Libraries, Curious Iguana bookstore, and the Weinberg Center for the Arts on Thursday, September 10, at 5 p.m., for a virtual event with New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman. Backman’s latest, Anxious People, is a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a…

An Interview with Tom Young

Tom Young writes about what he knows: the military. He logged almost 5,000 hours as a flight engineer on the Air Force’s C-5 Galaxy and C-130 Hercules, and flew missions to the Horn of Africa, the Far East, and nearly 40 countries — including combat missions to Bosnia and Kosovo…

The Clash of the Titans

Unavoidable Truth About American Presidents: Most have had colossal egos and the thin skin that goes with it. Unavoidable Truth About American Media: It’s always been a for-profit enterprise where revenues typically rise when criticism exceeds praise. The 231-year confrontation between these unavoidable truths fuels Harold Holzer’s timely and informative…

P&P Live!: Roxane Gay in Conversation with Alexis De Veaux

Self-described “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet” Audre Lorde is an unforgettable voice in 20th-century literature, and one of the first to center the experiences of Black, queer women. This essential reader showcases her indelible contributions to intersectional feminism, queer theory, and critical race studies in 12 landmark essays and more…

Romance Roundup: September 2020

We lost power for about 18 hours during a big storm last month, and I read an entire book that day. Maybe it’s pandemic stress, but reading like that (or much at all) has been a rarity these last six months. As we roll into autumn amidst this “new normal”…

In the Night Kitchen

Early in August, I reached for a cookbook, The Summer Kitchen (Mrs. Appleyard’s, of course) by Louise Andrews Kent and her daughter Elizabeth Kent Gay. This book, printed in 1957, was my mom’s and has been read and used until the pages are loose in the binding. The stains are…

7 Most-Favorable Reviews in August 2020

Musical Chairs: A Novel by Amy Poeppel (Atria/Emily Bestler Books). Reviewed by Heidi Mastrogiovanni. “Musical Chairs is part Feydeau farce and part hit sitcom and part British drawing room comedy, the comparison being inspired by the entertaining and satisfying qualities the novel shares with these styles of storytelling. As Bridget’s…

5 Most Popular Posts: August 2020

“The New Guard” by E.A. Aymar. “The act of explaining why an action is racist, and then having the offending individual agree not to make those kinds of jokes anymore, is compromise. And, as the minority in that situation, you're being consoled. You're being given a gift. The wrongdoer will…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with David O. Stewart

In this week’s podcast, David O. Stewart, past president of the Independent and author of the recently re-issued The Lincoln Deception, discusses some of his nonfiction works, including Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy and Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America. This…

A “Spirited Discussion” with Pam Fessler

Please join us on Thursday, September 3, at 5 p.m., for a 2020 Virtual History Book Festival “Spirited Discussion” with Pam Fessler, author of Carville’s Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, and the Fight for Justice (Liveright, 2020). Fessler will be interviewed by Steve Drummond. This event is free, but registration is required.…

An Interview with Nick Flynn

The title of Nick Flynn's new memoir pretty much says it all. When he was 6 years old, his mother set fire to their house while he and his brother slept inside. In This Is the Night Our House Will Catch Fire, Flynn unravels and retells the story of that…

Children’s Book Roundup: August 2020

For parents and kids, the end of summer signals one thing: the start of school! Whether those in your area are operating as usual, are fully online, or are attempting a hybrid approach, the beginning of the school year is all about transitions, learning new things, and figuring out who…

Voices Parry

Hello, and greetings from the voice inside my head. We all have them, these voices. A while back, a friend and I toyed with the idea of writing a series of books called The Voices in Your Head. We'd have a lawyer’s edition (“What, you couldn't have become a doctor?”),…

It’s Independent Bookstore Day!

It's Independent Bookstore Day, so don't let the pandemic (or a little rain) stop you from supporting your favorite literary shops! Most in the DC area are back open for in-person browsing (following CDC capacity guidelines), and all are up and running online. What are you waiting for? You've got…

Open Mic and Poetry Slam on IG Live

#BusboysOnLive is an online open mic and poetry slam curated by the poetry community of Busboys and Poets. In an unfortunate time of #socialdistancing and quarantine, we aim to provide an artistic virtual experience and conversation for the community by the community. Though we focus on Poetry, we invite Musicians,…

Meet the (Small) Press: Bushel & Peck Books

David and Stephanie Miles are part of a growing number of idealistic young Americans who see business as not only a way to make a living, but also to make a difference. A year ago, the Fresno, California, couple, both avid readers, started Bushel & Peck Books, a publishing house…

Memory Markers

Books, like people, make such good companions. Getting us through the bad times and helping us celebrate the good times. Making us calmer or piquing our energy. It’s amazing what we remember about certain segments of our lives and what we were doing during certain events. But what about the…

Dangerous Doublespeak

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” – George Orwell, 1984 In contemporary America, the signposts point to George Orwell’s 1984, that dystopian society where contradictions are etched in stone, and where truth is its opposite. It…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Walter Thompson-Hernández

Former New York Times reporter Walter Thompson-Hernández first encountered an unusual group of Black equestrians in Los Angeles County while researching profiles for the paper. What started as a feature in the Times eventually grew into Thompson-Hernández’s first book, The Compton Cowboys: The New Generation of Cowboys in America's Urban…

Heidi Pitlor in Conversation with Polly Rosenwaike

We're pleased to welcome Heidi Pitlor to our At Home with Literati series of virtual events in support of Impersonation. She'll be in conversation with author Polly Rosenwaike. Heidi Pitlor is the author of the novels The Birthdays and The Daylight Marriage. She has been the series editor of The…

An Interview with Pam Fessler

Pam Fessler, an award-winning journalist with National Public Radio, covers poverty, philanthropy, and voting issues. Prior to her 27 years at NPR, Fessler was a senior writer at Congressional Quarterly. She holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University. Carville’s Cure: Leprosy, Stigma, and…

Thank You for Your Support!

Here we are in the middle of a pandemic. Possibly the worst time to release a book, and yet I have many friends who are doing so. Book launches canceled, readings postponed, bookstores closed. It’s hard enough to reach readers in normal times, let alone now. That said, I’ve seen…

P&P Live!: Paul Dickson

Paul Dickson is the author of more than 60 nonfiction books, including Sputnik: The Shock of the Century and The Bonus Army: An American Epic (with Thomas B. Allen), and books on electronic warfare and war slang. He concentrates on writing about the American language, baseball, and 20th-century history. He…

Will Kamala Inspire a New Camelot?

The idea that Sen. Kamala Harris’ entrance onto the national political scene reminds me of my experience working for Sen. Robert F. Kennedy may seem a strange comparison. No two politicians began with such obvious differences: geography, social and political backgrounds, gender, race. Each category suggests opposites. While RFK emerged…

Let Me Tell You

It occurs to me that it’s been a while since I recommended books, and since many people are presumably stuck at home, now is probably a good time to do so again. However, unlike many such lists, mine highlights books that may not be particularly current. Why? Well, mainly because…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Kitty Kelley, Pt. II

In this second installment of a two-part series, famed biographer Kitty Kelley, author of the bestselling The Royals, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, and Jackie Oh!, among many others, speaks with fellow author John A. Farrell, whose most recent book is Richard Nixon: The Life. This…

Bedtime Stories: Aug. 2020

Susan Lewis: I am a two-books-to-bed sort of person. This means I listen to one while in the bathroom winding down and carrying out all the end-of-the-day sort of stuff. I then settle down with another book once I’m all pyjama-ed up and ready to take the journey into sleep.…

Ask a Librarian

Wondering what to read next? Looking for recommendations on a particular genre? Ask a librarian during our live Twitter chat every Thursday at noon. Be sure to follow @dcpl and join the conversation using the hashtag #AskaLibrarian. Hosted by the DC Public Library in Washington, DC. Want more people at…

The Philosopher’s Tome

If the title of Eva Brann’s new essay collection, Pursuits of Happiness: On Being Interested, sounds familiar, it may be because you remember the Declaration of Independence, which entitles us to freely pursue joy and live life as long as we don’t violate others. In 38 essays, Brann adds meaning…

Moor Your Boat

“This was my pivot point, my moment of self-arrest. Like a climber about to slip off an icy peak. I drove my ax into the ground…I recommitted myself to being healthy…having children had changed my regular routine. …join[ed] a girlfriend for a 5:00 a.m. workout…This new regimen changed everything.” So…

Well-Read Black Girl Book Club

The Well-Read Black Girl club was founded in 2015 by renowned writer Glory Edim as a means of celebrating and supporting women writers and readers of color. Washington, DC's East City Bookshop has joined bookstores across the nation in this effort. We are deeply committed to having diverse voices represented…

A Patriotic Pick: August 2020

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Grateful American™ Book Prize judge Dr. Neme Alperstein, a teacher of gifted and talented students in the New York City Public Schools system: Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation by Joseph…

The New Guard

Did you hear about the 2020 Hugo Awards? At the virtual ceremony for science fiction and fantasy’s loftiest prize, host George R.R. Martin found himself in a bit of trouble for praising problematic writers and mispronouncing the names of award winners, particularly writers of color. Martin sort of apologized —…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Kitty Kelley, Pt. I

In this first installment of a two-part series, famed biographer Kitty Kelley, author of the bestselling The Royals, The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty, and Jackie Oh!, among many others, speaks with fellow author John A. Farrell, whose most recent book is Richard Nixon: The Life. This…

Mike Hill in Conversation with Ramunda Lark Young

MahoganyBooks is proud to welcome to the Front Row Emmy-winning journalist Mike Hill as he discusses his debut memoir, Open Mike. Riveting, uproarious, and unprecedentedly truthful, Open Mike is both an intimate memoir and a piercing siren that alerts us to embrace a movement that honors masculinity and acknowledges that…

A Collegiate Catalyst

“What made you write your book?” That’s a question readers often ask authors. For each of my books, I can point to a news event, a question that sparked my curiosity, or even a childhood memory that led me to the story. But in the case of my latest book,…

Moscow on Fire

I’ve yet to watch a screen adaptation of War and Peace. It’s not that I doubt Tolstoy’s ranging lifescape of a book can be tamed and interpreted for viewers. It’s that I’m loath to exchange my already-cinematic visions of characters who are as lucid to me as recent experience. Like…

BY GEORGE! The Father of Our Country’s…Politics

Join Mark Edward Lender, author of Cabal!: The Plot Against General Washington, David Head, author of A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the Fate of the American Revolution, and guest host David O. Stewart, author of George Washington: The Political Rise of America's Founding Father for…

Romance Roundup: August 2020

The temperatures have been in the 90s for the past couple of weeks here in Virginia, which means two things: I’m already counting down until crisp, cool autumn days arrive and I’m spending as much time as I can reading in the comfort of my air-conditioned house. Here are some…

Ode to Joys

People from around the world send me their favorite poems. It’s one of the things I love best about recording my podcast, “Read Me a Poem.” Listeners have introduced me to poets like Rabindranath Tagore, Jose Rizal, and Alice Dunbar-Nelson. I’ve also been reminded of forgotten favorites. All kinds of…

Authors on Audio: Nicholas A. Basbanes

Nicholas A. Basbanes is the author of nearly a dozen highly acclaimed books of cultural history, including Every Book Its Reader: The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World and On Paper: The Everything of Its Two Thousand Year History. Kirkus calls his latest work, Cross of Snow:…

7 Most-Favorable Reviews in July 2020

Artifact: A Novel by Arlene Heyman (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Mariko Hewer. “When I started reading Arlene Heyman’s debut novel, Artifact, I didn’t expect to identify strongly with its heroine, Lottie Hart. Not that we don’t have things in common — Lottie, like me, has a stubborn streak a mile…

Lysley Tenorio and Quan Barry in Conversation with Anthony Doerr

Lysley Tenorio is the author of the novel The Son of Good Fortune and the story collection Monstress. He is the recipient of an NEA fellowship, a Whiting Award, a Stegner fellowship, and the Rome Prize. His stories have appeared in the Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, and Ploughshares, and have been…

5 Most Popular Posts: July 2020

Salley Shannon’s review of The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John Bolton (Simon & Schuster). “Bolton does throw a few serious punches. Many are directed at then Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who, in his telling, slow-walks presenting military responses when the president (and Bolton) asks…

An Interview with JS Lee

We’ve seen the headlines too many times: another senseless mass shooting. But what happens when the shooter gets away? JS Lee’s latest novel, Everyone Was Falling, takes us inside a small, mostly white town that is reeling from the traumatic aftermath of a shocking episode of gun violence and the…

Loaded Language

To see me from your perspective, I am genetically northern European. White. But, a few years ago, I recognized Ta-Nehisi Coates’ phrasing to be a clearer social demarcation, “the people who call themselves white” — which I don’t. While I undoubtedly grew up in a racialized culture and benefited from…

P&P Live!: Morgan Jerkins in Conversation with Karen Attiah

Between 1916 and 1970, six million Black Americans left their rural homes in the South for jobs in cities in the North, West, and Midwest in a movement known as the Great Migration. But while this event transformed the complexion of America and provided black people with new economic opportunities,…

The Ballroom of the First Draft

As an unabashed fan of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and its many adaptations into film, television, and even comic books, I often return to the wit and wisdom of her world of misunderstandings. At the heart of this love story between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy lies the fundamental…

Eliza Knight in Conversation with Rebecca Speas

The Rebel Wears Plaid is the first in Eliza Knight's new series, Prince Charlie's Angels. Her heroines are all based on real-life female Jacobite rebels from Scotland. By day, Lady Jenny Mackintosh helps her widowed mother manage their Highland estate. By night, she risks her life to raise troops, weapons,…

An Interview with Sara Ackerman

There’s more than Pearl Harbor to Hawaii’s experiences of World War II, and novelist Sara Ackerman’s third historical novel set in the islands, Red Sky over Hawaii, transports readers to the adventure — and romance — of a young woman on the Big Island. This lush story offers both a…

Children’s Book Roundup: July 2020

If it feels like summer is racing by — how is it already the end of July? — try putting on the brakes with these three new releases. They’re all colorful, playful, and just the thing to enjoy in the backyard hammock (or during a socially distanced picnic at the…

The Bethanne Show!

Book reviewer and bookish Lady About Town Bethanne Patrick and the folks at Loyalty invite booksellers and bookstagram friends to join us to discuss what they're reading next. Get your next read lined up and enjoy a lively chat. Bethanne Patrick, one of Flavorwire's “35 Writers Who Run the Literary…

Modernizing Money

When I told a friend in graduate school I was thinking about going into financial journalism, she said I shouldn’t call myself a financial journalist for fear of making people’s eyes glaze over. “Just tell them you write about money,” she suggested. I’ve been writing about money in the intervening…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Sydney Ladensohn Stern

A longtime contributor to Fortune, Money, and other publications, Sydney Ladensohn Stern is also the author of three nonfiction books: Toyland: The High-Stakes Game of the Toy Industry; Gloria Steinem: Her Passions, Politics and Mystique; and, most recently, The Brothers Mankiewicz: Hope, Heartbreak, and Hollywood Classics. The Wall Street Journal…

Virtual Historical Fiction Happy Hour

French perfume secrets, Black Canadian history, an award-winning 1933 cocktail, Vikings, and more! Join the nerdy fun this Friday—it's all in support of DC-based indie bookseller East City Bookshop! Click here to register. Want more people at your event? Spotlight it! Find details HERE.

An Interview with Solveig Eggerz

Solveig Eggerz has explored the culture and history of Iceland in the 20th century, and especially its women, in two novels, Sigga of Reykjavik and Seal Woman. An active member of the DC region’s writing community, Solveig leads workshops in creative writing and storytelling, and has written reviews for the…

In the Beginning Were the Words

Any roll call of saints must include the name of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897), who escaped from slavery in North Carolina and documented its pernicious evils in her extraordinary book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. First published in 1861, the memoir smashed the Southern euphemism of slavery as…

Meet Dirk Wittenborn and Susanna Moore

Magic City Books is proud to welcome Dirk Wittenborn and Susanna Moore for a virtual author event to celebrate their new books. Dirk Wittenborn is a novelist and screenwriter, his latest novel, The Stone Girl, is a riveting tale of deception, vengeance, and power set against the haunting beauty of…

Naming Rites

Welcome to “Girl Writing.” A reviewer and essayist for the Independent since 2012, I’ll be musing on reading and writing every couple of months in this column. My first task, naming it, led me to consider names and titles. So, here’s a bit of backstory behind my name, my books’…

Authors on Audio: Scott Turow

Since his blockbuster debut, Presumed Innocent, helped define the courtroom-thriller genre back in 1986, Scott Turow has established himself as a virtuoso storyteller. He continues that tradition in The Last Trial, which the Providence Journal calls “thriller writing of the highest order, at once a brilliant character study and superb…

Meet Zaina Arafat

Told in vignettes that flash between the U.S. and the Middle East — from New York to Jordan, Lebanon, and Palestine — Zaina Arafat’s debut novel traces her protagonist’s progress from blushing teen to sought-after DJ and aspiring writer. In Brooklyn, she moves into an apartment with her first serious…

An Interview with Jeffrey Colvin

I met Jeffrey Colvin in a workshop at the Colgate Writer’s Conference in 2013. It was immediately clear that he was a thoughtful writer, reader, and critic. I am forever indebted to him for his quiet, firm encouragement urging me to try to get my writing out in the world…

One Way or Another

Debbie Harry turned 75 on July 1st. You would think this milestone would be headline news — one deserving of college survey classes and think pieces galore. And under normal circumstances, the occasion of Harry's birthday would have earned plenty of column inches. But, as you know, these are not…

1941

1941

P&P Live!: Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson

The Republican Party appears to be divided between a tax-cutting old guard and a white-nationalist vanguard—and with Donald Trump's ascendance, the upstarts seem to be winning. Yet how are we to explain that, under Trump, the plutocrats have gotten almost everything they want, including a huge tax cut for corporations…

A Patriotic Pick: July 2020

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Grateful American™ Book Prize judge John Danielson, founder of Chartwell Education Group and former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Education: The Education of Henry Adams: An Autobiography…

Grace’s Gift

Poets are coming into their own again. Locked down — fearing, with good reason, for our lives and livelihoods — we’re craving the emotional distillation, the feeling of gratitude, the fresh view of the world, and the sense of perspective that’s part and parcel of the best, most accessible poems.…

Bibliotherapy in the Time of Covid-19

I love books. After my family, they are the center of my universe and always have been. I can’t imagine my life without them. I can go on vacation or live in someone else’s shoes simply by opening a book. It is my escape hatch, a portal into another realm.…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Barry Gewen

An editor at the New York Times Book Review for more than three decades, Barry Gewen is also author of The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World, which Douglas Brinkley calls “a brilliantly rendered intellectual biography of arch-Realist Henry Kissinger…Every chapter is brimming with shrewd analysis, deep learning,…

A Conversation with Art Taylor & Tara Laskowski

Tara Laskowski is author, most recently, of One Night Gone. After spending a Thanksgiving at the beach with her family, Laskowski couldn’t shake the feeling that within all this off-season beachy quietness was a sense that in the nothing happening, anything at all could happen. Her debut novel explores what…

An Interview with S.A. Cosby

I don’t remember when I first met Shawn (S.A.) Cosby, but I absolutely remember the first time I heard him read. It’s not uncommon for wonderful writing to be diminished by a poor reading performance, but Cosby is a gifted reader and beautiful writer, and his story absolutely devastated the…

A Delectable Diversion

Over the past week, I’ve been listening to Small Plates, a 2014 short-story collection by mystery writer Katherine Hall Page — listening to it while on daily walks or while doing things around the house (pandemic routines, pandemic reads). To borrow a word from a character in the story “Across…

Unsung or Unwell?

“Mary Todd Lincoln remains America’s most provocative First Lady,” writes Jean H. Baker in the first sentence of her preface to the 2008 edition of her 1987 work, Mary Todd Lincoln: A Biography. Some might dispute her premise of “most provocative” by pointing to Eleanor Roosevelt, Nancy Reagan, or Hillary…

7 Most-Favorable Reviews in June 2020

Un-American: A Soldier’s Reckoning of Our Longest War by Erik Edstrom (Bloomsbury Publishing). Reviewed by Larry Matthews. “Erik Edstrom’s Un-American: A Soldier’s Reckoning of Our Longest War left me with a sadness bordering on despair, an empty feeling that burrowed into the darkest areas of my soul. It’s more than…

Romance Roundup: July 2020

Thanks to covid-19, Independence Day is going to be a quiet affair at my house this year. We’ll grill out and make s’mores. There will be sparklers for the kids (oh, who am I kidding? I love them as much as my children do) and, for at least a few…

Aural Authority

A couple of years ago, I devoted a column to the popularity of audiobooks. I recounted how some members of a golf group I occasionally joined were enthusiastic audiobook aficionados. I was asked why my books weren’t part of the “lucrative” audio market. I don’t see many of those golfers…

5 Most Popular Posts: June 2020

“The Demise” by E.A. Aymar. “There’s a potential for change in crime fiction, too. The disregarded voices of women and marginalized writers have become too pressing to ignore, whether it’s cries of harassment or racism. Every year, it seems, a controversy explodes. And, every year, the frustration is double-edged: anger…

Meet Stephanie Burt

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes celebrated poet and critic Stephanie Burt for a discussion of her latest book, After Callimachus: Poems. She will be joined in conversation by Mark Payne, University of Chicago professor of Classics and author of the book's foreword. Hosted by Harvard Book Store in…

Grace Notes: The Spirit

In this third and final installment of her three-part audio series, poet Grace Cavalieri, whose recent works include What the Psychic Said and Other Voices, Other Lives, addresses “not the letter of the law (writing poetry), but the spirit…” Download the podcast here. Like what we do? Click here to…

Musical Chairs at Justice

News reports last weekend described the ongoing contretemps between Attorney General Bill Barr and the once sitting (uncomfortably) U.S. attorney for the powerful Southern District of New York in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, a Trump appointee. Berman’s independence apparently had been an impediment to President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s hands-on…

An Interview with Nancy Thorndike Greenspan

In addition to co-authoring four books with her late husband, child psychiatrist Stanley Greenspan, former health economist Nancy Thorndike Greenspan has also penned two biographies, including, most recently, Atomic Spy: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs. This latest work, which came out last month, paints a complicated picture of a…

Children’s Book Roundup: June 2020

Except for being hotter, this June has felt a lot like May, April, and March. Much of the country is still (or again) hunkered down and will be for most, if not all, of the summer. If that’s the case for your family, and this year’s “vacation” will happen in…

Come Read with Us

“For the children, so they may find their way through the dark — They are all our children.” –Opening epigraph, An American Sunrise, by Joy Harjo, U.S. poet laureate A while ago, I was at a party in Woodley Park, where I met a former St. Alban’s schoolteacher and administrator.…

Poetic Justice

Lives of great men all remind us, We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us, Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing,…

P&P Live!: Colson Whitehead

In The Nickel Boys, his #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in…

The Demise

This column starts with Otto Penzler. But the problem didn’t. And it won’t end after him. On May 19th, Otto wrote a public Facebook post (since deleted and revised) notifying everyone that his long-running position as guest editor of the revered Best American Mystery Stories series was ending. Houghton Mifflin…

Grace Notes: Responsibility

In this second installment of a three-part audio series, poet Grace Cavalieri, whose recent works include What the Psychic Said and Other Voices, Other Lives, asks, “What are our responsibilities as writers? What keeps us going? What is self-esteem?” Download the podcast here. Like what we do? Click here to…

An Interview with Jen Malia

I first met Jen Malia at the Writer’s Center on a panel about autism through a literary lens, and I’ve long admired her writing. Her essays and articles are well known, appearing in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Catapult, Glamour, NPR, and more. Recently, she published Too Sticky!…

The Original Cancel Culture

Cancel culture describes the relatively recent phenomenon of public backlash so vociferous that it forces businesses to disassociate themselves from a product that is deemed offensive. Some have taken it up as a battle cry against what they regard as an insidious form of “politically correct” censorship. Accusations of cancel…

Brit Bennett: Identity, Race, History, and Perception

Magic City Books in Tulsa is thrilled to welcome Brit Bennett for a virtual author event to celebrate her new novel, The Vanishing Half. Bennett is the author of the New York Times-bestselling novel The Mothers; a finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize for the best first book, the…

So You Want to Read about Race?

Many booklists about race have come out recently, and we may intend to read all the titles included on them. But how many are we likely to get to? These weeks of social-distancing have provided more room for reflection, but it’s hard to concentrate on sustained reading during such challenging…

Proud Memories: Preserving the Legacy of DC’s LGBTQ+ Community

For Pride month, join the DC Public Library for an online demonstration of ways that you can help preserve and share the legacy of LGBTQ+ people in Washington, DC. Library staff will demonstrate two ways that you can begin to help in the work of collecting and sharing these memories.…

Grace Notes: The Energy of Poetry

In this first installment of a three-part audio series, poet Grace Cavalieri, whose recent works include What the Psychic Said and Other Voices, Other Lives, asks, “How do we access poetry? How do we harvest memory?” Listen to the podcast here. Like what we do? Click here to support the…

An Interview with Eric Cervini

When asked to explain what the atmosphere was like for gay men and women working for the federal government in the 1950s, historian Eric Cervini says, “It was essentially like The Crucible.” In his new book, The Deviant’s War: The Homosexual vs. the United States, Cervini details how, with echoes…

Brilliant Madness

From the mists of the middle ages, a man with a freakishly long nose rides slowly over the horizon, his appendage dangling, catching the attention of the shepherds and farmers around German Strasburg. By the time he enters the gates of the town, he is drawing curious onlookers from every…

P&P Live!: Ibram X. Kendi and Ashley Lukashevsky

“Antiracist Baby is bred, not born. Antiracist Baby is raised to make society transform.” In this bright and impactful board book, a world-renowned antiracist scholar introduces nine steps babies and their families can follow to actively work toward racial justice. Bold, engaging art clearly communicates each essential concept. A Family…

A Patriotic Pick: June 2020

Whether it’s via their tone, topic, or tenor, certain works just say “America.” Here is one such title, suggested by Grateful American™ Book Prize judge Doreen Cole, former assistant to the dean of the Honors College at Indiana University: Breaking Rockefeller: The Incredible Story of the Ambitious Rivals Who Toppled…

Advice from “Avatar”

During this time of quarantine and covid-19, of protests and the killing of George Floyd, of reflection and public action, the recreations of pop culture can feel frivolous, if not downright unnecessary. And, yet, most people would not deny that the amount of movies, TV, cartoons, music, and literature consumed…

Is Law Like Love?

These past weeks, the world, certainly the United States, has watched — and many have participated in — a revolution in our streets like none before. It isn’t over. The most recent issue of the Academy of American Poets newsletter includes this timely (though she was born in 1878) stanza…

E.J. Dionne in Conversation with Eugene L. Meyer

E.J. Dionne Jr. is a syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, university professor in the Foundations of Democracy and Culture at Georgetown University, and visiting professor at Harvard University. He provides regular political analysis for MSNBC and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” He is…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Scott Turow

Mega-bestselling novelist and trial attorney Scott Turow needs no introduction. Since his debut, Presumed Innocent, burst onto the scene back in 1986, Turow has proven himself to be a master of the legal thriller. He again demonstrates his prowess in his latest novel, The Last Trial, which David Baldacci calls…

A Conversation with Tom Glenn

Tom Glenn’s professional life is the stuff of Indiana Jones in the murky world of international intelligence, near-death adventures, secrets kept and squandered, and, of course, betrayal. Years undercover in Vietnam during the war, followed by high-level spydom, with its sometimes tawdry reality, left him emotionally exhausted. He turned to…

Elliot Ackerman in Conversation with Phil Klay

Widely acclaimed author Elliot Ackerman discusses his new novel, Red Dress in Black and White, a stirring drama that unfolds during the course of a single day in Istanbul. Discover the story of an American woman attempting to leave her life in Turkey — and her husband. Riveting and unforgettably…

Romance Roundup: June 2020

Summer has arrived, and while it may not look anything like summers past, one thing remains consistent: I’m buying more books than I possibly have time to read. Here are a few of the romance novels that kept me turning pages recently. ***** I love a good culinary novel, and…

A Largely Teutonic Tale

Two recent nonfiction books look at the history of Europe through different prisms, each shedding significant light on what is going on in the region now. They are written by academic historians but in a prose that is remarkably accessible. Germany: A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Scott Phillips

Award-winning crime writer Scott Phillips is known for mixing noir with humor, as he did in his earlier novels, The Ice Harvest, The Walkaway, Rake, and Cottonwood. Now, he’s back with That Left Turn at Albuquerque, which Blake Crouch calls “a brutally funny, wickedly clever nightmare that heralds the triumphant…

7 Most-Favorable Reviews in May 2020

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui (Algonquin Books). Reviewed by Alice Stephens. “I love swimming precisely for the solitary nature of it. It’s not that different from reading, in that the mind becomes immersed in another reality. But not everybody is attracted to swimming for its solitary nature, as I…

An Interview with Domnica Radulescu

In her bright pink jacket, with matching beret and boots, Domnica Radulescu looks like a fashion model or a movie star. At Washington and Lee University, where she is the Edwin A. Morris Professor of Comparative Literature, she brings her creativity and verve into the classroom and also organizes symposia…

TGIF LIVE! with Casey Cep and Eugene L. Meyer

TGIF LIVE! with Casey Cep, author of Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee. Furious Hours tells the true story of murder, revenge, and courtroom drama. Beloved writer Harper Lee spent years working on telling the story. Now, Casey Cep brings this story to life, from…

5 Most Popular Posts: May 2020

“What’s in a Name?” by Elizabeth Foxwell. “The panorama of today’s mystery offerings can be bewildering, given the myriad categories and classifications. Definitions inevitably provoke debate, but researchers often turn to the work of critics and scholars such as Jon L. Breen, Howard Haycraft, H.R.F. Keating, and Julian Symons for…

Bunny

Bunny

Presumed Classic

A well-written, fast-paced plot can, by itself, cause a novel to be deemed “good” by the masses. Add to it some engaging, nuanced characters depicted so vividly they become imbedded in the reader’s psyche, and the evaluation needle moves to “great.” Finally, those who seek to grab the brass ring…

Word Search

In accepting the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters at the November 2017 National Book Awards, Annie Proulx sent a little frisson of joy up the collective spine of writers of a certain age when she reminded us, “Although this award is for lifetime achievement, I didn’t start writing…

Authors on Audio: A Conversation with Lee Durkee

Along with writing stories and essays for such publications as Harper’s, the Sun, and Zoetrope, Mississippian Lee Durkee also has two novels under his belt, Rides of the Midway and the newly released The Last Taxi Driver. Today, Durkee discusses the latter novel, which George Saunders calls a “wild, funny,…

Connecting to the Past, One Gin Fizz at a Time

In 1931, American journalist Milly Bennett sat shivering in Moscow and wrote a letter to a friend back home. She was lonely, and she reminisced in her letter about drinking gin fizzes in a clandestine bar in San Francisco. Memories of a better time sustained Milly while she was isolated…

An Interview with Donna Hemans

At 15, Plum Valentine is banished from her Brooklyn home and sent back to Jamaica by parents nervous about the pernicious effects of the American lifestyle. Once there, her trust in her parents shattered, she turns to her chemistry teacher, Lenworth Barrett, for solace. Soon, she is pregnant and planning…

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