Book Talk

It is safe again to read Model Home, a slyly funny yet tragic novel about the housing boom—and, ultimately, an intimate portrait of a California family that is counted as collateral damage to the housing bust. Written by Eric Puchner, a recipient both of the coveted Pushcart Prize for short fiction and of an esteemed […]

Swamplandia! by Karen Russell Two years ago, the Pulitzer Prize selection committee reviewed three novels as contenders for its selection—and selected none as its finalist. One inference from this decision is that there were no good novels that year. But that is incorrect. Absolutely wrong. (A more accurate assessment is that the Pulitzer reviewers were […]

Perhaps books about apocalyptic events don’t seem very summertime effervescent, or perhaps they are the just the proper counterweight to all the sunshine and living-is-easy. Three great novels (like seriously great, well-crafted works of art) for beach and hammock reading. “Highest Tide” Just as “To Kill A Mockingbird” was Southern Gothic, “High Tide” should be […]

Erik Larson wrote one of my—and my mom’s—favorite books of the 21st century. Written in 2003, Devil in the White City is actually about the close of the 19th century, a compelling (true) story about the creativity and civic power that was plowed into rebuilding Chicago for the 1893 World Fair after a massive fire […]

When we first meet Henry Skrimshander, one of the charming-but-flawed characters in Chad Harbach’s debut novel, The Art of Fielding, he is a scrawny hayseed. A talented shortstop in South Dakota, Henry, like most teenage athletes, dreams about playing in the major leagues. It seems, however, as if Henry is more destined for the blue-collar […]