Author

“Imagine me; I shall not exist if you do not imagine me; try to discern the doe in me, trembling in the forest of my own iniquity; let’s even smile a little.”

Why is it great? Nabokov is masterful here, not just stylistically but emotionally. He interrupts Humbert Humbert’s grotesque pursuit of Lolita by having him address the reader directly with an…
August 2, 2017
Why's This So Good? David Foster Wallace and the brilliant "Consider the Lobster"

Why’s This So Good? David Foster Wallace and the brilliant “Consider the Lobster”

Take a moment to bask in the splendor of the piece that maddened many Gourmet readers in 2004
August 1, 2017
Katherine Boo, Sarah Lyall and Harper Lee: It's grrl power week on Storyboard

Katherine Boo, Sarah Lyall and Harper Lee: It’s grrl power week on Storyboard

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure
July 28, 2017
Sarah Lyall and (the hilarious) "Paying a Price for 8 Days of Flying in America"

Sarah Lyall and (the hilarious) “Paying a Price for 8 Days of Flying in America”

Whoever said “It is better to travel than to arrive” wasn’t sitting next to Sarah Lyall aboard American Airlines Flight 1886 en route from Iowa to Arizona at the moment…
July 27, 2017

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the tree house; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”

Why is it great? I love how Lee has written this line: It tumbles out of Scout’s head exactly like the thoughts of a 6-year-old child, all “this and this and…
July 26, 2017
Katherine Boo's 15 rules for narrative nonfiction — now this is a "must-read"

Katherine Boo’s 15 rules for narrative nonfiction — now this is a “must-read”

At the Mayborn Conference for storytellers, the Pulitzer winner warns against falling in love with the craft too much, and says that “getting it right matters way more than whether…
July 25, 2017
On identity: men who created it, women who lost it, a writer who escaped it

On identity: men who created it, women who lost it, a writer who escaped it

A weekly roundup of some favorite things, for your reading and listening pleasure
July 21, 2017
In a South African cookbook-memory book, recapturing a life that was lost to apartheid

In a South African cookbook-memory book, recapturing a life that was lost to apartheid

"Huis Kombuis" offers an old-fashioned spin on multimedia storytelling: a collective memoir with lovingly hand-stitched recipes honoring a demolished neighborhood -- and a past that couldn't be destroyed
July 20, 2017

“And one day he made an error, and then struck out, and it sounded like all of Fenway was booing, and he ran to the bench with his head down, the red rising in his face, the shame in his belly, and the rage. Ted thought: These are the ones who cheered, the fans I waved my cap to? Well, never again.”

Why is it great? Yes, it’s more than one sentence. But in this one short stanza, Cramer has captured all the rage and sorrow and loneliness and drive of the…
July 19, 2017
5(ish) Questions: Steve Oney and "A Man's World" (both the song and his new book)

5(ish) Questions: Steve Oney and “A Man’s World” (both the song and his new book)

The writer talks about how ideas about masculinity have changed over his 40-year career, and how he eerily predicted the rise of Breitbart America
July 18, 2017