
Recently a friend asked me to make a list of books I would recommend for someone who would like to read some serious literature, and in doing so, I realized that a list like this could serve as a useful primer for anyone who reads what I write in this space. That being said, what ...

I’m always interested in tracing the lineage of art, of finding an indication of what influenced an artist, and of discovering what aspects of a past novel, for instance, have been adopted and repeated by contemporary novelists. It’s a small thing, but I feel as though I more thoroughly understand Philip Roth’s American Pastoral when ...

I like to buy books for people as gifts. I do this with the awareness that most of the books I purchase will never be finished and most likely not even begun. I don’t know what it is about me—whether buying books or writing in this space—that instills me with the compulsion to thrust things ...