Despite the desires of some readers, nobody should expect any good novels about Covid.

He will forever have grand plans for the world, and the world will forever disappoint him with its failures.

Most contemporary non-fiction books take three hundred pages to tell a one hundred page story.

On Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread

And now we’ve reached the time of year when the weather acts like a jester, teasing us with hints of sun on still chilly days.

To decide to write isn’t also to decide that you’ll be the most loathsome dinner guest.

Understanding what triggers the desire to rush toward and cover a crisis isn’t an easy task.

What the reader feels and thinks and has already experienced is what the novel of validation delivers.

To care about the state and quality of writing today is to scream into a void while knowing that the void does nothing but laugh.

Somewhere in the black and white portion of my mind is a memory that I occasionally question.

In the opening of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, we hear a line with a bit of context underneath its wit.

Hermann Hesse’s 1919 novel Demian.

Dealing with Criticism as Stephen Dedalus.

The most famous white fence in literature requires a new bookshelf.

An unfinished project is a taunt to danger.

A distant siren in the night.

Artistic journeys don’t have destinations.

Iris Murdoch grips her pen a tad firmer than most writers.

You can hear her voice—a bit breathless, direct, consumed by the story.

For an unforgettable account of foreign reporting, we need to jump back nearly a century.