Instead of ‘Chihuahua,’ try a book

Despite the fact that the New York Times review called it only "reasonably diverting," it seems that "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" is No. 1 at the box office this holiday weekend.

No poetic justice for the US?

In the US this year, much angst has been focused on the subject of the Nobel Prize and the disinclination of the Swedish judges to offer the award for literature to an American. But, says critic David Orr, in a piece in tomorrow's New York Times, there's actually an even ...

‘Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World’

The day a stray cat unexpectedly arrived in our dog-centric home, my ardently cat-loving cousin Jeanne had a word of advice. “He’s not a dog,” she reminded me. “A dog leaps immediately into your heart. A cat arrives with a slow crawl.”

The Secret Life of Bees

I’m reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I love the dialogue, the national events mentioned, and the way bees are woven into the honey of the story.

‘The biggest selling writer in English you’ve never heard of’

At least that's how the Guardian begins today's piece on Chetan Bhagat.

The Guns of August

I am now reading The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. It’s a “you are there” page turner. The female narrator is superb. I’d fight under her command any day.

‘The Forever War’

Dexter Filkins, war correspondent for The New York Times, fittingly begins his wonderfully written and carefully researched debut book, The Forever War, in the middle of a nightmarish battle in Fallujah, Iraq.

The Nobel Prize goes to a cosmopolite

Oh, those Swedes! Today the Nobel literary committee (to quote the Independent) "infuriated the bookies, delighted the bookish and thumbed its nose, again, at the American book industry" by awarding the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature to half-British, half-French novelist and philosopher Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio.

Circling My Mother

Circling My Mother by Mary Gordon is a rather matter-of-fact, almost angry, memoir about the author’s mother and her siblings. I’m just on page 100 of that 250-page book, but the voice is loud and clear.

‘The Forsaken: An American Tragedy in Stalin’s Russia’

One warm September evening in 1959 – in the depths of the cold war – I was out strolling in Moscow with two American friends.As we waited to cross at a busy street off Red Square, a man in his 20s with an American accent approached us and asked if ...