Archive for October, 2007



Fifteen seconds for In Search of Lost Time

A mid-November deadline looms, and between work and writing, I don’t have much steam left for books, email, or blogging. In fact, I’m at about 65% on the brain-deadness scale. Which translates into a whole lot of YouTube. So while my mother-in-law, Jane, recently enjoyed all 3500 pages of In Search of Lost Time, then read a new biography of . . .

Read more




Paris Review interview extravaganza

In the Guardian last week, Orhan Pamuk recounted how, while writing his first novel, he read the Paris Review’s author interviews to bolster his own resolve. When in 1977 in Istanbul I first read Faulkner in the Paris Review, I felt as elated as if I had stumbled on a sacred text. I was 25 years old, living with my . . .

Read more



Newsletter Signup

For regular updates, subscribe to my free newsletter.