What Should I Read on Vacation?: A Question I Never Took Lightly Again 1

This theory of vacation books, which I subscribe to so heartily, all began with a vacation I took, to London, which was one of the worst decisions I ever made, and the book I took along, Banvard’s Folly, which was one of the best.

A Year in Reading: David Vann 1

In the midst of anarchists and chaos, he offers uncommon sympathy and grace in a marriage lost then found, and redemption from what we fear most, that we can’t run from who we are, that the past is waiting to ambush us.

2010's Literary Geniuses 1

The MacArthur grant awards $500,000, “no strings attached” to “talented individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Modern Library Revue: #17 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter 4

Carson McCullers attains a level of virtuosity on many fronts, but I was most taken with her depiction of relationships, many of which balance on a knife edge of propriety, wavering back and forth between the lovely and the weird and the outright perverse.

#8: Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson 3

If resonating with the work of either Hemingway or Sebald is enough to make a novel good, Out Stealing Horses, with its echoes of both, is a rare book indeed.

The Most Anticipated Books of the Rest of 2008 16