As you can see, I have the best in-laws. That’s Larry on the left, and Jane on the right, and though they divorced years ago — long before I met them — they’re both still this fun and campy. Right now I’m reading Old Mortality, a gift from Larry. He figured I would appreciate Sir Walter Scott’s meditation on fanaticism, . . .
On Friday night I’ll be introducing Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as she opens the last event of Girls Write Now’s Chapters series with a reading from her short story collection, The Thing Around Your Neck. I’ve written about my admiration for her work many times; since then, she’s won a MacArthur Fellowship and earned a place on The New Yorker’s 20 . . .
I can’t believe I forgot to link to the second installment of my Paris Review Daily Culture Diary. It’s not any sexier than the first, I’m afraid, but if you’re craving more usage pedantry, solo drinking tips, or line-editing blow-by-blows, you won’t want to let this one pass you by. Here’s one of the mouse-over notes: After reading Brad Gooch’s . . .
Jonathan Franzen says “there isn’t a more hilarious narcissist in all of literature” than Sam Pollit of The Man Who Loved Children, which my friend Robb Forman Dew has been urging on me.