At the back of our yard grows a great thorny hedge, as dense as the thicket that grew up around Sleeping Beauty’s castle those hundred years she slept. In the winter and early spring, when the branches are bare, you…
Today’s regular Bacon contributor throws Harry Potter under the bus and stakes out a daring claim about J.K. Rowling’s work. Due to the highly controversial nature of these remarks, he or she has chosen to write under a pseudonym. I’ll send…
This month, my couples book club read The Sympathizer, by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and I suppose you could call it a spy novel of the tortured soul variety. It’s the story of a communist mole for the North Vietnamese who finds himself – in a…
Roger Moore met me at a local coffeeshop in his signature tweed jacket and pocket square: the stylish professor! He brought his boyish good looks and charm and a copy of his gorgeous new book, ten years in the making, Jane…
Be Frank With Me – out a few weeks ago and already gaining a legion of enthusiastic fans – tells the story of a single mother, her exceptional (and exceptionally difficult) son, and the babysitter who is plunked into their lives. They…
Love story, tightly plotted thriller, heartbreak hotel: you’ll be sweating bullets and may shed a few tears while reading Ariel Lawhon’s new novel, Flight of Dreams. Lawhon imagines what might have happened on the final, doomed journey of the Hindenburg before it exploded in May of 1937,…
A poem can make you pause; a poem can make you laugh, or cry; a poem can encourage you loudly or brightly – or ever so quietly – to seize the day. I love this one by Arne Weingart… * …
Reading a novel can be just like daily life: you’re moving a million miles an hour. A great, suspenseful novel makes you want to sprint to the finish even if you’re enjoying the journey. Poetry – not so much. Poetry…
I read Arne Weingart’s new book of poetry in the bathtub: PERFECTION. Levitation for Agnostics seems meant for soaking and reflection. None of the poems are pretentious or tiresome, and though I would describe more of them as wistful than cheerful, they all…