Books I'm Reading:

A Climate of Change, Hilary Mantel
The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa, ed. Robert Hass
Assemblage, S.P. Elledge
At Weddings and Wakes, Alice McDermott

Books I've Read:  

Oct. 2009 – Feb. 2010: 
The Painted Veil, Somerset Maughm
The Delivery Room, Sylvia Brownrigg
Morality Tale, Sylvia Brownrigg
Vienna Triangle, Brenda Webster
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger
The Whole World Over, Julia Glass
That Night, Alice McDermott
After This, Alice McDermott
Claude and Camille, Stephanie Cowell
A Separate Peace, John Knowles
The Mechanics of Falling, Catherine Brady 


March 2009
Shy Girl, Elizabeth Stark
After This, Alice McDermott

January/February 2009
Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
Drawn from Life, Jonathan Strong

November/December 2008
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin
Washington Square, Henry James
Run, Ann Patchett
Short stories, including a wonderful one by A.L. Kennedy called “Wasps,” in a recent New Yorker

October 2008
The Principles of Uncertainty, Maira Kalman. Gorgeous art, and the impeccable Kalman mingling of philosophy with whimsy. 

With Borges, Alberto Manguel. Beautiful, beautiful memoir of becoming a young reader for Borges in Buenos Aires.  To read this book is to be in the room not only with Borges, but with a great observer and thinker.  Manguel’s modesty is part of his enormous charm. 

The Palace Thief, Ethan Canin. Written with a scalpel and great empathy. The first story, “Accountant,” reminds me of Ishiguro

August and September 2008
Angelo, a moving, lovingly crafted children’s picture book written and illustrated by the master David Macaulay. An Italian stonemason befriends a pigeon.  The beauty is in the details.

What Pete Ate from A to Z a comical and delightful children’s picture book written and illustrated by the inimitable Maira Kalman (Pete is a dog who prefers Cameras and Accordions to cakes or kibble.)

Smartypants, my favorite children’s picture book by Maira Kalman.  Pete the dog has a scintillating day at school. Best touch: he recites Gertrude Stein!            

On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan. I think this is the most absorbing novel I have yet read by McEwan. The story of these two newlyweds, who come so close to happiness, is delicately handled, compassionate and incisive.

No One You Know, Michelle Richmond.  An engaging (un)detective novel, with a playful element of higher mathematics
                         
Away, Amy Bloom.  A woman journeys from Russia to Alaska, via NYC. Some powerful writing here, especially of this character’s  memories.

July 2008
The Good Soldier, Ford Madox Ford (a phenomenally great work of fiction – thrilling to reread, for Ford’s artistry with voice and sustained irony)

Teaching Beauty in DeLillo, Woolf, and Merrill, Jennifer Green-Lewis (a deft, gorgeously written book about the importance of aesthetics in our response to literature and art)

Pip and Squeak, Kate Duke
If you haven’t come across Kate Duke’s comical and lovely picture books for children, you must go out right now and find some. This is her latest, and it is as delightful and witty as her earlier ones. See Kate’s website at www.kateduke.com.

Laughing Without an Accent, Firoozeh Dumas (a delicious book of pieces about growing up Persian, in Iran and in America. Read this collection together with Funny in Farsi, for a personal and humorous take on Persian and American cultures, with a touch of French culture tossed in for good measure.)

June
After Dark, Haruki Murakami
Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger

May
Laughing Without an Accent, Firoozeh Dumas
Domestic Violence: Poems, Eavan Boland
Iron and Silk, Mark Salzman
Lost in Place, Mark Salzman
The Soloist, Mark Salzman
Madapple, Christina Meldrum

April
Persuasion, by Jane Austen
The Private Lives of the Impressionists, by Sue Roe
Watermark, by Joseph Brodsky

March
The Master - Colm Toibin

February
Self-Help, and Birds of America - stories by Lorrie Moore
Native Guard - Poems by Natasha Trethewey

January, 2008
How to Breathe Underwater, beautiful, astonishing stories by Julie Orringer
The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud
Isn't It Their Turn to Pick Up the Check? (Dealing with All of the Trickiest Money Problems Between Family and Friends), an informative and engaging book
by Jeanne Fleming & Leonard Schwarz
The Disagreement, a promising debut novel by Nick Taylor (coming out this spring!)
A year's worth of The New Yorker, whatever fiction and personal essays I've missed!