Dear Literary Lady, My family won’t be able to get together for the holidays this year, so I’ll be spending it alone. Any suggestions for books to read when you’re missing your loved ones? – L.Y., Atlanta, GA Dear L.Y., I grew up far away from my family, so this is a question that I’m […]
Just over twenty years ago, David Foster Wallace published his best-known and most frustrating novel, Infinite Jest. It’s a big (very big), bold, complex book that divided critics yet nevertheless landed with a thud on that list of novels everyone intends to read “someday.” When people do tackle it, they often give up within the […]
Movies are magical and wonderful of course, presenting us with eye-popping, realistically-rendered scenarios of adventure, action, romance, and intrigue. But where do the screenwriters behind those movies get their ideas? Well, sometimes they make them up, because writers are wired that way. But frequently, a movie is an adaptation of a work from another medium, […]
Maybe you’re the seventh of twelve, or maybe you’re the first of one; whichever it is, your birth order definitely has an effect on your personality…and, consequently, the stack of paperbacks relaxing on your bedside table. In honor of all those times your little brother borrowed your favorite book and returned it with syrup stains […]
Reading when you’re a kid is the best, because everything is fascinating and new, and your heart is still fresh and unsullied by the wear and tear of commuting and filling out tax returns and waiting in line for coffee two hours each morning. Who wouldn’t want to go back to the days when the whole world felt magic, […]
