Next book

REACHING INSIDE

50 ACCLAIMED AUTHORS ON 100 UNFORGETTABLE SHORT STORIES

Well-intentioned but often thin praise pieces.

Famous writers riff on their favorite short stories.

Dubus III asked 50 working writers to write a brief essay praising two short stories. Joyce Carol Oates selects John Updike’s “A&P” and Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal,” and Paul Harding spotlights a pair of John Cheever classics: “The Swimmer” and “The Jewels of the Cabots.” While it’s pleasant enough to read seasoned writers celebrating their inspirations, the project has its shortcomings. Because Dubus invited his contemporaries to contribute, the selections tend to gravitate to writers in the New Yorker mold from the second half of the 20th century. Selections are dominated by the likes of Raymond Carver (cited three times), Russell Banks, Jamaica Kincaid, and so on. Many contributors also have their own stories praised by others—Michael Cunningham, Tobias Wolff, Jayne Anne Philips, Stuart Dybek, Ron Carlson, and more—which exacerbates the insular vibe. The better pieces break free from either effusions of praise or workshop analysis and make more adventurous selections or statements. Lois Lowry’s commentary on Carver’s “A Small, Good Thing” is a pathway for a discussion of her own experience with grief; Dagoberto Gilb’s piece on Juan Rulfo and Tomás Rivera is both an appreciation and a critique of the American literary canon; Phil Klay opens his piece on Dostoyevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” by recalling a near-death experience; and Cunningham blends an essay on the limits of teaching fiction writing with a lucid study of James Joyce’s “The Dead” and its iconic ending, “one of the greatest paragraphs produced by human hand.” Some of the authors share writing prompts, suggesting this book is intended as a teaching tool; in most cases here, though, it may be enough to take their recommendations on faith and go directly to the stories themselves. Other contributors include T.C. Boyle, Meg Wolitzer, Richard Russo, Lauren Groff, Ann Beattie, and Junot Díaz.

Well-intentioned but often thin praise pieces.

Pub Date: April 25, 2023

ISBN: 9781567927696

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Godine

Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023

Categories:

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 15


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

Next book

HISTORY MATTERS

A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 15


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • New York Times Bestseller

Avuncular observations on matters historical from the late popularizer of the past.

McCullough made a fine career of storytelling his way through past events and the great men (and occasional woman) of long-ago American history. In that regard, to say nothing of his eschewing modern technology in favor of the typewriter (“I love the way the bell rings every time I swing the carriage lever”), he might be thought of as belonging to a past age himself. In this set of occasional pieces, including various speeches and genial essays on what to read and how to write, he strikes a strong tone as an old-fashioned moralist: “Indifference to history isn’t just ignorant, it’s rude,” he thunders. “It’s a form of ingratitude.” There are some charming reminiscences in here. One concerns cajoling his way into a meeting with Arthur Schlesinger in order to pitch a speech to presidential candidate John F. Kennedy: Where Richard Nixon “has no character and no convictions,” he opined, Kennedy “is appealing to our best instincts.” McCullough allows that it wasn’t the strongest of ideas, but Schlesinger told him to write up a speech anyway, and when it got to Kennedy, “he gave a speech in which there was one paragraph that had once sentence written by me.” Some of McCullough’s appreciations here are of writers who are not much read these days, such as Herman Wouk and Paul Horgan; a long piece concerns a president who’s been largely lost in the shuffle too, Harry Truman, whose decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan McCullough defends. At his best here, McCullough uses history as a way to orient thinking about the present, and with luck to good ends: “I am a short-range pessimist and a long-range optimist. I sincerely believe that we may be on the way to a very different and far better time.”

A pleasure for fans of old-school historical narratives.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025

ISBN: 9781668098998

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: June 26, 2025

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025

Categories:

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 113


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • IndieBound Bestseller

Next book

A WEALTH OF PIGEONS

A CARTOON COLLECTION

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

Awards & Accolades

Likes

  • Readers Vote
  • 113


Our Verdict

  • Our Verdict
  • GET IT


  • IndieBound Bestseller

The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.

Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.

A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.

Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Celadon Books

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020

Close Quickview