In a book of “pep talks and practical advice,” the author of the memoir “You Could Make This Place Beautiful” shares 10 key ingredients to creativity. In an email interview, she talked about why she’s not embarrassed about gaps in her reading, and the viral poem that changed everything. SCOTT HELLER What books are on … Read more
We all sometimes have to put up shields between ourselves and the rest of the world. But safety leaves us solitary — we need love and understanding, and both those things require us to be open and vulnerable. The characters in this month’s romances are unusually closed-off, leading to uncommonly glorious endings when they finally … Read more
L.J. Smith, an author of young adult novels best known for “The Vampire Diaries” series, which became a hit television drama, and for repossessing her characters by writing fan fiction after she was fired and replaced by a ghostwriter, died on March 8 in Walnut Creek, Calif. She was 66. Her partner, Julie Divola, and … Read more
Dennis McDougal, a prolific author, Hollywood muckraker and Peabody Award-winning documentarian, died on Saturday from injuries sustained in a car crash in Southern California. He was 77. His death, in a hospital near Palm Springs, was confirmed by his stepson, Dennis Fitzgerald Dearmore. Mr. McDougal’s wife, Sharon (Murphy) McDougal, 76, who was also critically injured … Read more
Patsy Ferran will not judge a book by its cover. But covers are important to her. “See?” she said, palming a copy of a Barbara Kingsolver novel at a Brooklyn branch of McNally Jackson bookstore. “Such a good cover. Aesthetics do matter.” Ferran, a London-based actress, is currently starring in Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named … Read more
An arrangement of dried flowers pressed between sheets of plastic, the name “Quintana” written in a child’s neat lettering at the top. A yellow Post-it with a poem written in cursive: “My mom is not a sigh/She does not eat pie/Maybe she can fly.” A pocket-size notebook of handmade paper composed as a Mother’s Day … Read more
Not long ago, Jennifer Harlan, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, walked into Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., her hometown. On a set of shelves sat several books, their covers wrapped in brown butcher paper. Scrawled on the paper covers were vague, brief and intriguing descriptions (think: “quirky,” “star-crossed love” or “spicy … Read more
THE UNWANTED, by Boris Fishman Boris Fishman’s third novel, “The Unwanted,” begins with an ending. Its protagonists, a “minority-sect” family living in an unnamed autocracy riven by civil war, have just learned that they have to leave the country. George, the father, has devoted his life to teaching “dominant-sect” poetry at a state-sponsored university, a … Read more
GHOSTS OF IRON MOUNTAIN: The Hoax of the Century, Its Enduring Impact, and What It Reveals About America Today, by Phil Tinline The December 1967 issue of Esquire was, on the whole, standard fare for the age: a photo spread of the actress Sharon Tate; a write-up of a party thrown by Andy Warhol; a … Read more
STORY OF A MURDER: The Wives, the Mistress, and Dr. Crippen, by Hallie Rubenhold The case of Dr. Crippen, detailed in Hallie Rubenhold’s “Story of a Murder,” would have been familiar to many in 1910. According to contemporary newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic, the London-based doctor — a meek, feeble, bespectacled man — … Read more