Jeffrey Cramer argues that if you read Henry David Thoreau’s Walden as an autobiographical record, you are bound to be disappointed. (After all, Thoreau was selective about what he included, and the bits he didn’t write about – such as having his sisters do his laundry – seem to undercut … Read More
Author: Kate Stover
“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person.”
Stating the premise of your work simply and clearly in the first sentence requires courage. Readers might say, “Is that all?” Or, some might feel skeptical about your ability to show how an original story can follow from a classic premise that Kafka, Dante, and other masters have already used. … Read More
“You have to turn now to all the other wounded people around you, and find a way to connect with them.”
When Johann Hari comes to the final chapter in his book on depression, he offers the advice that he wishes he had received when he was diagnosed with clinical depression decades ago. He believes that instead of focusing on “chemical imbalances” we should focus on “power imbalances” that lead to … Read More
“As a refugee from Vietnam who grew up in a poor and violent area of Philadelphia, my life changed dramatically when I enrolled at Harvard College.”
When Due Quach was a new student at Harvard, she didn’t have much to add to her classmates’ conversations about their vacations. She had never been on one. Starting at age eight, she had worked almost every day at her family’s take-out restaurant, which was in a high-crime neighborhood of … Read More
“The waitress seemed to sense that this was not the moment to ask if they had everything they needed.”
Of course, the waitress was right: these people clearly didn’t have everything they needed. This is familiar territory for fans of Anne Tyler. We count on seeing an “eccentric ecosystem of relatives and neighbors” who aren’t getting the assurances, stability or respect they need. When the New York Times… Read More
“The one that was accepted would then be rewritten ten times as I received round after round of notes.”
I believe that everyone who is contemplating making a living as a writer should read “Nonfiction, an Introduction,” a short essay in This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage. Ann Patchett describes being allowed to write one of ten ideas that she would present to her magazine editors, and … Read More
“No other river in the world can match the Danube for the sheer historical richness of the cities and landscapes through which it passes.”
As an American, I haven’t thought much about the many roles that rivers have played in other parts of the world. In The Danube: A Cultural History, Andrew Beattie argues convincingly that when travelling the Danube, you are taking not just a geographical journey, but a political, linguistic, philosophical, … Read More
“Constanze took to cutting his meat at table so he wouldn’t slice up his fingers.”
Mozart was famously fidgety – he constantly drummed his fingers and was unable to even wash his hands without pacing. Apparently, Mozart’s wife Constanze didn’t trust him with a knife because he was prone to injuring himself. So, in addition to being one of the world’s greatest composers, Mozart was … Read More
“He felt as if he was never again going to know the reason for anything he did.”
Why read novels? Jonathan Franzen argues in a Harper’s essay that people are drawn to strong fiction because they like to engage in complex stories that don’t have simple resolutions. In Anne Tyler’s first novel, If Morning Ever Comes, the central character, a law student, tries to learn … Read More
“I could feel nothing except the burden of my own life and the exhaustion, the apparent futility, of trying to sustain it.”
This week, the Centers for Disease Control released a report that said that suicide rates in the United States have risen nearly 30% since 1999. With the issue of mental health in the news so frequently lately, I am looking for guidance from Parker Palmer’s essays on depression. He describes … Read More
“The failure was flooded with genius.”
This book focuses on one remarkable ten-month period when some of the most interesting people in the world – Sigmund Freud, Johannes Brahms, Johann Strauss, Gustav Klimt – lived in Vienna, which had one of the highest suicide rates in Europe. Why did so many people in this … Read More
“My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.”
Who would you like to begin your summer with? This year, I choose Henry David Thoreau. His essay “Walking” celebrates the art of meandering, sauntering and getting lost in fields and woods. He is drawn to the forest, the meadow and “the night in which the corn grows.” He … Read More
“But what could possibly go wrong?”
Think of the funniest books you’ve ever read. Did any of them win literary awards? No? As the Washington Post points out, there has long been a “critical resistance to comic novels.” Until now. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for fiction went to the laugh-out-loud novel Less by Andrew Sean Greer… Read More
“I learned that the poem was made not just to exist, but to speak – to be company.”
“I want to be alone, but not too alone.”
I disagree with the description on the back of this book, which says that one of Jonathan Franzen’s “essential themes” is “the hidden persistence of loneliness in postmodern, imperial America.” Rather, it seems to me that in every one of these essays, the narrator discovers that he’s not alone … Read More