Categories
Archives
-

-
Recent Posts
- “Rock n’ roll! It’s the music of puberty.” — Suzi Quatro
- 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Twelfth Night: or, What You Will
- “Literature is the written expression of revolt against expected things.” Happy Birthday to the least happy man ever, Thomas Hardy
- “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- “[My ambition is to] give something to our literature which will be our own.” — Walt Whitman
- “I don’t want to show things, but to give people the desire to see.” — Agnès Varda
- “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- “If I am going to be a poet at all, I am going to be POET and not NEGRO POET.” — poet Countee Cullen
- Reviews: Currents (2026)
- Reviews: Forge (2026)
Recent Comments
- Maddy on “I’m not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful.” – Marilyn Monroe
- Mike Molloy on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Much Ado About Nothing
- sheila on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Bryan Summers on “I never made a message picture, and I hope I never do.” — Howard Hawks
- Lyrie on “I just love telling stories. That’s what we do and it’s a good business to be in, especially if you know you have talent.” –Jensen Ackles
- Kendra Williams on Josh White, singer of “the fighting blues”
- sheila on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- sheila on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Bill Wolfe on “I dont want to just do just country type stuff the rest of my life. I want to do some different things.” — Charlie Rich
- Donn Harris on The Books: “Awake and Sing” (Clifford Odets)
- sheila on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- Pat on “Listen, I never meant to make money. I never wanted it. I’m a singer, man.” — Gene Vincent
- sheila on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- Jincy Willett on “There’s nobody as good as the Ramones, never will be.” — Joey Ramone
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- sheila on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
- Dave on Review: The Chronology of Water (2025)
- Biff Dorsey on 2026 Shakespeare Reading Project: Hamlet
-
Tag Archives: Nancy Lemann
2021 Books Read
I lived at three addresses this year. I moved twice. In the middle of a pandemic. It’s been a year of upheaval, transition, as well as endurance. For most of this year, the majority of my stuff was in storage. … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Austria, Balkans, Billy Wilder, Biography, books read, Cary Grant, Croatia, Czeslaw Milosz, David McCullough, Dubravka Ugrešić, Edvard Radzinsky, Elinor Lipman, England, essays, Eve Babitz, Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Germany, Guillermo del Toro, Hitler, Howard Hawks, Ireland, Italy, Liz Phair, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Nick Tosches, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Poland, politics, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Russia, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, Sweden, Thomas Mann, Tom Wolfe, Vladimir Nabokov, war, WWII, Yugoslavia
1 Comment
Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Lots of re-reads because 1. I’m in turmoil. The familiar is a comfort. 2. The majority of my books have been in storage for almost a year. We all have been reunited but they’re still in boxes stacked against the … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Evelyn Waugh, fiction, Greta Garbo, Memoirs, Nancy Lemann, Robert Conquest, Sergei Kirov, Stalin, stuff I've been reading
1 Comment
So Do I
“She had a nostalgia for a life she had never lived.” – Nancy Lemann, The Fiery Pantheon: A Novel
Midnight in Paris Re-Release: A Nostalgia For a Life He Had Never Lived
This article originally appeared on Capital New York. Midnight in Paris opened in May. So far, it has made over $50 million in the United States alone, making it Woody Allen’s biggest box office success. Sony Pictures has decided to … Continue reading
“We Don’t Know Anything About Other People. We Can Only Know Them From the Outside. This Is One Of the Great Joys Of Life.”
So says Irish writer John Banville in this awesome recent interview about his new book that has set my mind spinning. There’s so much in it. So much to think about. There are only a couple of writers today where … Continue reading
Posted in writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Cormac McCarthy, Joan Didion, John Banville, John Irving, Joseph Ellis, Katherine Dunn, Michael Chabon, Nancy Lemann
6 Comments
A.S. Byatt’s New Book
She’s got a new giant novel coming out: The Children’s Book. it’s been a while for her – recently it’s been mainly short stories – and I am beyond excited. Now that I hear what it’s about, I am even … Continue reading
Posted in writers
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Annie Proulx, J.D. Salinger, Jeanette Winterson, John Banville, Michael Chabon, Nancy Lemann
9 Comments
7 Weird Reading Facts
Got this from ricki. 1. I am very sensitive to typeface. I will NOT read a book if I find the typeface grating or unfriendly. I have bad eyes, too, so a good typeface is important. Penguin Classics USED to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Personal
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Cormac McCarthy, Elinor Lipman, Hopeful Monsters, Jeanette Winterson, John Irving, Lives of the Saints, Lorrie Moore, Madeleine L'Engle, Margaret Atwood, Mating, Michael Chabon, Nancy Lemann, Nicholas Mosley, Norman Rush, Ring of Endless Light, Robert Kaplan, The Passion
54 Comments
The Books: “The Ritz Of The Bayou – The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering nightclubs, jazz-crazed bars, and other aspects of life in the tropic zone” (Nancy Lemann)
Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: (although this book is actually reportage – oh, well) The Ritz Of The Bayou – The New Orleans Adventures Of A Young Novelist Covering The Trials Of The Governor Of Louisiana, with digressions on smoldering … Continue reading

