Unabashedly Bookish

Even capably researched history books with nary a fact wrong within them can run into trouble. Sometimes, the way facts are presented can give us the impression that they're crucially related. This kind of narrative "framing" is what can lead a good book about plague, pestilence and death to give you the sense that maybe, possibly... the plague had a motive. Read more...

“Sexploit” novels like “Naked Came the Stranger” were panned, but for America on the brink of sexual revolution, perhaps they offered hope. Read more...

I get on the bus home from work at the psychiatric hospital around 4:30, when most of my coworkers also get on. I usually hold a text, which feels almost religious, or barbarous, like a shield in my palms. I'll read The New Yorker, nonfiction (recently: Philip Roth's account of his dying dad), or fiction (recently, short stories). Last week, the head psychiatrist, sitting beside me, caught my eye as I looked up. She said I often hide in my books on the bus ride home. "Why?" she asked. I felt put on the spot. Read more...

Cows and kine. Hippopotamus and hippopotami. Sheep and sheep. Runners-up and runner-ups. Mothers-in-law. Surgeons general. Yikes! Luckily, your plural questions will "sleep with the fishes" after this exploration. Read more...

Joanna Smith Rakoff ruminates on the art of friendship ... Read more...

For years, I devoured Chick Lit novel after Chick Lit novel and rooted for every heroine to find her Mr. Right. As I flipped the pages of those novels, I also hoped that I’d fine mine. After years of failed relationships and colossally awful dates, I hit my 34th birthday and felt like Charlotte from Sex and The City when she screamed, “I’ve been dating since I’m 15. I’m exhausted. Where is he?” Read more...

"The portion due to me from Mr. Powell, my former wife's father, I leave to the unkind children I had by her, having received no part of it: but my meaning is, they shall have no other benefit of my estate than the said portion, and what I have besides done for them; .they having been very undutiful to me. All the residue of my estate I leave to the disposal of Elizabeth my loving wife." Read more...

Maps are a record not just of where we are in the world but also of the places we've been -- on the planet and in our imaginations. Read more...

Rhodi Hawk’s debut novel, a fusion of psychological thriller and horror entitled A Twisted Ladder, is nothing short of a dark fantasy masterwork. Sublimely atmospheric, brilliantly plotted, simultaneously ghastly and lyrical, this is as much a work of literary fiction as it is genre fiction…. Read more...

Whether one chooses to admit it or not, a person’s physical appearance plays an increasingly significant role in numerous aspects of their life. We make countless snap judgments of people every day – the disheveled homeless guy laid out in the alley with an empty bottle of Thunderbird next to him; the stunning, six-foot tall woman walking down the sidewalk in front of you; the teenaged girl next to you on the subway with tattoos on her neck – it’s just part of being human. Just as we make conclusions about aspects of a person’s appearance, those same people are prejudging us in the same way – forming opinions based on our height, weight, clothing, hair color, demeanor, etc. Read more...