On book recommendations:

They want a book more compelling than sleep or sex, more engaging than googling old boyfriends or catching up on The Wire. The book you grab for as soon as you wake up, and read at stoplights. The term may be a sorry cliche, but for want of a better one, let’s just call these books what they are: page-turners.

It’s harder still for me to know what to recommend since I (probably) don’t know you, but to see the books that maybe aren’t quite as compelling as Jennifer Reese suggests, see the Top 5, above, or look for the ones I gush about.

I can recommend Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle Blog, which consistently posts posts as compelling as Reese’s. As with most books, I’d probably prefer sleep or sex if I’m desperate need of either, or even in slight want of the latter, but it’s still a good read.

On book recommendations:

They want a book more compelling than sleep or sex, more engaging than googling old boyfriends or catching up on The Wire. The book you grab for as soon as you wake up, and read at stoplights. The term may be a sorry cliche, but for want of a better one, let’s just call these books what they are: page-turners.

It’s harder still for me to know what to recommend since I (probably) don’t know you, but to see the books that maybe aren’t quite as compelling as Jennifer Reese suggests, see the Top 5, above, or look for the ones I gush about.

I can recommend Critical Mass, the National Book Critics Circle Blog, which consistently posts posts as compelling as Reese’s. As with most books, I’d probably prefer sleep or sex if I’m desperate need of either, or even in slight want of the latter, but it’s still a good read.

I saw this quiz on About Last Night, and was the person who guessed the quote’s subject to be Eudora Welty, rather than its author. The e-mail I wrote said:

My first hunch for the subject of your passage was Eudora Welty. I felt somewhat doubtful, especially given her work in short stories. Then I thought of Francine Prose, but I just finished Reading like a Writer and read A Changed Man not long ago, and the passage didn’t quite seem to fit her writing.

Strange how two women writers sprung first to mind, especially given what I found via “tricks of the trade.”

(Hyperlink added)

Laura wrote back:

Interesting! It’s Eudora W writing about Jane Austen, but I’m fascinated that you guessed it was *about* Welty. Doesn’t that just lend itself beautifully to some theory that no matter the subject, a writer is always in some sense writing about herself too? I love that.

I do like the theory, and I’d guess a lot of writers have a certain inspiring writer who they would like to emulate, or at least live up to. Perhaps it’s the flipside of the ideal reader.