In a few days, Anthony Doerr might win the National Book Award. He’d win it for a beautiful, richly detailed novel that raises deep questions about good and evil against the backdrop of World War II. I can’t imagine him working a deep fryer at a restaurant. But he did. Twenty years ago he was […]
Read MoreA friend once told me she has the 20-page rule. That is, if she doesn’t like a book after the first twenty pages, she stops reading it and chooses another book instead. She said that “life is too short to read bad books.” I can see her point, particularly if you read books solely to […]
Read MoreThere are certain things I always look for in antiques stores–rose-colored glassware, books with cryptic inscriptions, skeleton keys, teal-colored anything. I don’t usually buy these items, but I like to discover them. I feel a strange comfort knowing they exist in the world somewhere, even if that somewhere is a dusty shelf under a burned-out […]
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