Eowyn Ivey warns us about the bears, and yet we want to move to Alaska anyhow

Check out the great piece that ran this weekend in The Observer by our very own Eowyn Ivey, author of the delightful debut novel The Snow Child which goes on sale this week (more evidence of Ivey’s superstardom tk in the next post).  Maybe next time she takes to the Colorado River we can swap […]

What it is all about: a great writer’s great new novel

It’s publication day for George Pelecanos’s newest thriller, WHAT IT WAS, and we couldn’t be more excited. You can read Janet Maslin’s terrific review here, and you can also read (if you subscribe) this Wall Street Journal article about the novel’s unconventional three formats and prices. Or you can check out George himself, via our […]

Pitches and Noes

There is no shortage of reports on how bad book publicists are. The thrust of most of these essays is this: in-house publicists will do a crappy job on your book.  They won’t take your call for more than a few weeks, they don’t have the time or inclination to listen to your ideas, and […]

When mothers and daughters leave each other

I try not to be too bossy, but I’m going to have to insist that you read this beautiful and moving excerpt from Caitlin Flanagan’s GIRL LAND, which ran in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine. As mothers have been saying since time began: You’ll thank me later.

What I Read Over Winter Vacation

I always dreaded that back-to-school essay we had to write about What We Did Over Summer Vacation. Like most kids, I didn’t have a lot of control over my summer activities (I pretty much just went to swim team practice).  If it were up to me, I’d have spent the summer before 4th grade training […]

Resolutions, Revisited

I really went out on a limb with my 2011 resolutions. Let’s see how I did: 1. To do more of the things I don’t do enough.  Three times a week, in the name of cardio fitness, I now do something that involves loud, often terrible music, and is not karaoke. 2. To do less […]

A Rich start to the New Year…pun intended!

We can’t imagine a better way to start the week, let alone a whole year, than a Shouts and Murmurs column by Simon Rich in the New Yorker. Especially when we’ve got Simon’s novel, What in God’s Name, coming in August.  But that’s not all! This week’s New Yorker piece is part of a collection […]