This month’s starter is a book that topped lots of 2025 ‘best of’ lists – Flashlight by Susan Choi. first degree Although I’ve seen many good words about Flashlight, I haven’t read it yet. But a book that was on a lot of 2025 “best books” lists that I DID read is Buckeye by Patrick […]
6 Degrees of Separation Read More »
Julian Barnes Says Goodbye to the Novel “His fiction has found meaning in life’s gaps and love’s absence.” In The Atlantic literary biographer Adam Begley writes that Julian Barnes’s latest novel, Departure(s): offers only a sketchy storyline, mixed with memoir and thoughts on memory. An extended farewell, an author’s valedictory flourish, the whole package is
A simple illusion can unlock your childhood memories, according to new psychology research Recent research published in Scientific Reports suggests that “people can better access detailed memories from their childhood by experiencing an illusion of owning a younger version of their own face”: Our memories are not just recordings of external events; they are experiences
Literary Links: Life Stories in Literature Read More »
The Unexpected Benefits of Reading at Random “Elspeth Wilson on Becoming a Literary Omnivore” Scottish writer Elspeth Wilson, author of These Mortal Bodies (July 2025), concludes “reading at random won’t solve all the issues with unequal advances, difficulties in sustaining a career, and lack of diversity in publishing. But it has helped me encounter the
Notable Literary Deaths in 2025 Dreaming of writing your novel this year? Rip up all the rules! If your New Year’s resolutions involve getting to work on that novel you’ve been meaning to write, novelist Elizabeth McCracken has some general advice to offer. Books That Open the Mind Writers for The Atlantic offer “recommendations for
The cultural works becoming public domain in 2026 NPR informs us of the works entering the public domain this new year. There are some big names here, including the first four books of the Nancy Drew series, Dashiel Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, and Agatha Christie’s first Miss Marple mystery, The Murder at the Vicarage. Can
For 2025 I decided to focus on books related to the topic of Life Stories in Literature. As usual, I read mostly fiction, but I also fit in a few nonfiction resources (about various aspects of storytelling) for Nonfiction November. Here, then, is the list, arranged alphabetically by author’s last name: 10 Best Books I
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The best book I read this month is Buckeye by Patrick Ryan. Here are the other two. When you’ve been in the writing business as long as I have, the one thing you need to constantly search for are stories that will challenge you as a novelist . . . This is probably the most
Reading Notes: December Read More »
My last read of the year turned out to be one of the best books I read in 2025. Buckeye by Patrick Ryan is my favorite kind of novel: old-fashioned storytelling from an omniscient narrator, a multi-generational family saga that follows characters over the courses of their lives. Ryan sets his novel in the fictional
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