featured posts
Jun. 30, 2010
Man Out of Time: “The Disenchanted” by Budd Schulberg
In *The Disenchanted,* Budd Schulberg wrote the final act in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s tragedy.
Tags: Budd Schulberg · F. Scott Fitzgerald · featured posts · The Disenchanted
Mar. 29, 2010
Dickens’ Outlines
Dickens’ notes are a rare opportunity for a young writer to watch a master at work.
Tags: Charles Dickens · featured posts · How Writers Write · Little Dorrit · Robert Olen Butler
Mar. 23, 2010
“Wolf Hall”
Hilary Mantel’s Booker Prize-winning “Wolf Hall” re-imagines Henry VIII’s chief minister and henchman Thomas Cromwell as the true modern man and the sainted Thomas More as a mad, hair-shirted religious zealot.
Tags: featured posts · Hilary Mantel · Wolf Hall
Mar. 18, 2010
Baseball’s Yankee Problem
In baseball, the deck is stacked. It’s worse than unfair; it’s boring.
Tags: baseball · featured posts · Red Sox · Yankees
Mar. 9, 2010
Done!
My new novel explores our eternal fascination with crime stories.
Tags: Defending Jacob · featured posts
Feb. 12, 2010
A Lesson from Dickens
In 1839, 27-year-old Charles Dickens was already a superstar. Then he did a strange thing: he applied to law school.
Tags: Charles Dickens · creativity · featured posts
Feb. 2, 2010
The Street Photography of Jules Aarons
An under-appreciated photographer of Boston street life has an exhibit at the Boston Public Library
Tags: Boston Public Library · featured posts · Jules Aarons · The Strangler
Jan. 26, 2010
“Little Dorrit”: Dickens’ Teeming World
Why modern realism just doesn’t feel like reality.
Tags: Charles Dickens · featured posts · Little Dorrit
Dec. 20, 2009
The View from Below: A midlist author watches the ebook wars
The publishing industry is a futures market – a Silicon Valley for books, with every publisher a venture capitalist searching for the Next Big Thing.
Tags: Amazon · ebooks · featured posts
Dec. 16, 2009
Dickens vs. the Snarks
To a reader, Dickens absorbs, the web distracts.
Tags: Charles Dickens · featured posts · Little Dorrit
