Nell Freudenberger's "An Arranged Marriage" The New Yorker Fiction: 20 Under 40 September 6, 2010 issue This is one of the stories that I was most anticipating, and perhaps that's contributed to my feeling a bit disappointed on having finished it. You know how sometimes, imperceptibly, you work up an
Jonathan Franzen Freedom Harper, 2010 If you happened to have read my response to The Corrections last month, you might well have expected my response to Freedom to appear here sometime in 2020. But although it took me nearly ten years to get around to reading the first, it took only
Joan Bauer's Squashed Putnam - Penguin, 1992 Ellie Morgan, sixteen years old, is our main character in Squashed: "A funny fast-paced book about an ordinary girl with an extraordinary ambition." That's what the New York Times Book Review says about the novel. And here's a taste of Ellie, as created by
Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) Signet-Penguin, 1992 In Dracula, you might expect to find a traditional tale of fright, narrated by the guy sitting next to the campfire, who's holding the end of the flashlight (er, torch) so that his face is illuminated in the spookiest way possible. But, no. Bram
Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1857) Trans. Alan Russell Penguin, 1987 Emma Bovary and I have met before, but we were not long acquainted. I started to read Flaubert's novel in between high school and university, but I never finished it. Not even close, actually. When we last moved house, I
