The Known World by Edward P. Jones landed on my TBR when I heard him interviewed by Eleanor Wachtel on “Writers & Company”. More than twenty years ago. But Jones was recently named for The Paris Review’s Hadada Award (nominated, received), and I determined this spring would see it
Originally I picked up a copy because of the cover, the slight embossing on that title and the antlers encircling it (not the cover pictured below). But I read it because I am curious about how the Sámi people live, in what’s called Scandinavia today. Traditionally they are reindeer
In a sparsely furnished cosy (i.e. small) apartment at the age of eighteen, working multiple jobs and having little energy or money to do much in my off-hours (and no television), going to the library was my main source of entertainment for several years. And it seemed like, every
About a year ago, I was reading Christina Stead’s For Love Alone (1945) and it was such a gush of words that it was almost intoxicating; I found myself ordering a copy of The Man Who Loved Children (an earlier novel, perhaps her best-known overseas, in which I’d stalled
This year I’m focusing on anthologies and stories in magazines. Partly because I have eleventy-billion issues of The New Yorker around here that I’ve only partially read; partly because I always say that I want to read more anthologies but then I choose other books instead (I’m reading two,
