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Katarína by Kathryn Winter JUST PUBLISHED! |
Back when the Thursday’s Child writing group met each Thursday evening, members were always glad to hear that Kathryn was going to read. We knew that someday her haunting story of a small Jewish girl wandering Slovakia during the Nazi occupation would find a wider audience. It already has—Publisher’s Weekly gave it a starred review, and so many people came to Kathryn’s first reading that some of them had to stand outside on the steps. This is a wonderful book to give to a friend, an older child, or yourself. |  Order now! |
Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W. Liggett JUST PUBLISHED! |
In 1935, ten-year-old Marda Liggett saw her father assassinated while he was unloading groceries from the family car. Why? Because his newspaper exposed political corruption in Minnesota and the Twin Cities. Some fifty years later Marda began researching her father’s life and times, and the result is this book. I only wish she hadn’t had to cut out so much of the fascinating material on early twentieth-century radical politics, muckraking journalism, Prohibition, and organized crime (but the cuts do make for a brisker narrative). |  Order now! |
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Billiards at Half-Past Nine |
Familial, political, and religious complexity in post-war West Germany. |
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Group Portrait with Lady |
Everyone has a different opinion about Leni Pfeiffer. Some say she’s stupid, others she’s brilliant. Some say she’s a saint, others a whore. Each, including the narrator, reveals him- or herself in attempting to characterize Leni and her life. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve read this book. |
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The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum |
Journalists make Katharina’s life hell when it comes out that this seemingly ordinary woman fell in love with a terrorist and sheltered him for a night. |
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End of a Mission |
Father and son go on trial for burning an Army jeep as an act of conceptual art. | Order now! |
The Castle of Crossed Destinies |
Travelers meeting in a forest inn find themselves strangely mute and are obliged to tell their stories using tarot cards. This book was my first encounter with the enchanting Italo Calvino, and I still adore it. |  Order now! |
The Baron in the Trees |
While growing up, the Baron decides to live not merely in the forest but in its branches. He is not, however, antisocial, and entertains all manner of guests. Great fun! |  Order now! |
Invisible Cities |
Marco Polo describes mythical and allegorical cities to Kubla Khan. Not to be missed. |  Order now! |
The Nonexistent Knight and the Cloven Viscount |
Two delightful short novels in one cover, in somewhat the same vein as The Baron in the Trees. |  Order now! |
Thus Was Adonis Murdered |
This stunningly well crafted British mystery centers on a group of young lawyers. It is one of the funnier books I have read, and turns gender cliches upside down in delightful ways. |  Order now! |
The Shortest Way to Hades |
Sarah Caudwell’s second novel about the lawyers of "the Nursery" is a worthy successor to Thus Was Adonis Murdered. This time the plot circles around an inheritance. |  Order now! |
The Sirens Sang of Murder |
The third and (alas!) weakest in the series, this remains one of the funnier mysteries to be found. For my taste, Cantrip is more fun as a spice in the other two novels than as the main dish here, but the still-nongendered Hilary continues to be an enviable primary narrator. |  Order now! |
The Claudine Novels |
These novels, the result of Colette’s husband locking her up with instructions to write something racy about her school days, launched Colette’s literary career and are always great fun. The first one is the best, but the sequels are pretty good too. |  Order now! |
Cheri and The Last of Cheri |
These two novels about the spoiled brat Cheri and his inability to leave his middle-aged mistress Lea (former courtesan and close friend of his mother) are among Colette’s most celebrated works. |  Order now! |
The Ripening Seed |
A story about two teenaged sweethearts and the effects of the boy’s experience with an older woman. Sensitive and sensuous evocations of youth. Not for rigorous devotees of political correctness, of course. |  Order now! |
The Vagabond |
Vintage Colette, if not one of her most famous books. |  Order now! |
Chance Acquaintainces and Julie de Carneilhan |
If you like Colette, you won’t want to pass these up... |  Order now! |
The Collected Stories of Colette |
Every Colette devotee needs this book. It’s an absolute trove of stories on all her favorite topics: love, animals, mothers and daughters, the demi-monde, theatrical life, love, lesbians, nature, love again. |  Order now! |
The Salterton Trilogy |
Here are Davies’ first three novels, set in (or with characters escaping from) the mid-sized Canadian city of Salterton. While they lack some of the depth of Davies’ later novels, they are lively, witty, perceptive, and awfully funny. I first read them when I was confined to bed after having dropped a load of glass-recycling on my feet, and these novels were just the pain-killer I needed. |  Order now! |
The Deptford Trilogy |
This trilogy is probably Davies’ greatest work. From the moment Dunny Ramsay ducks to avoid Percy Staunton’s snowball in their rural Canadian town, there’s no turning back either for them, for the young woman whom the snowball hits, or for the reader. On the surface, Ramsay loses a leg in World War I and becomes a teacher, while Staunton becomes a rich man and Mary Dempster goes mad. But that’s only the beginning. |  Order now! |
The Cornish Trilogy |
Wild, magical, and full of enjoyable excess, the novels of the Cornish trilogy deal with the life and bequests of an eccentric amateur art dealer named Francis Cornish. With typical Davies flair, the plots swirl around gypsies, priests, spies, artists and musicians, aristocrats, and college professors. |  Order now! |
The Cunning Man |
The cunning man of the title is a Canadian doctor who practices medicine with a psychological and holistic bent. He rents his clinic and lodging from a pair of lesbian artists, who attend a highly theatrical Anglican church run by his childhood friend Charlie. I might add that there’s at least one murder. |  Order now! |
The Tin Drum |
How does it feel when your first novel remains most people’s favorite? Despite having written more than his share of excellent novels, Günter Grass probably keeps hoping to surpass The Tin Drum. And if you haven’t yet read this grotesque yet beautiful novel of Nazi and post-war Germany, it’s about time you did. |  Order now! |
Dog Years |
One of the big sprawling Danzig books. Characters examine, in a mixture of lies and revelation, their lives and friendships growing up during the Third Reich. | Order now! |
Cat and Mouse |
Part of the Danzig trilogy, this novella’s narrator looks back at his teenaged years in Danzig and tries to make sense of his confused relationship with schoolmate Joachim Mahlke. | Order now! |
Call of the Toad |
A German and a Pole, both past their youth, meet and fall in love. But then they launch an ambitious real estate project: a fancy cemetery in Poland for its German former inhabitants. While a more compact tale than Grass usually tells, it’s a bizarre and funny look at Europe in the 1990s. | Order now! |
The Questionnaire |
Jan Chrysostem, filling out yet another government questionnaire in the course of applying for yet another job, finds himself inspired to tell the story of his life, family, and village. (Currently out of print, but worth requesting.) | Order now! |
The Liars’ Club |
I kept alternating between reading this one fast (to see what happened next) and slow (so I wouldn’t get to the end too quickly). Most books about crazed and dysfunctional families get depressing, but not this one. Its story of a sometimes nightmarish childhood in 1960s Texas and Colorado is funny as hell. |  Order now! |
The God of Small Things |
If you prefer chronological, clearly narrated books written in full sentences, this novel is not for you. On the other hand, if you delight in sensuous and evocative language, complex stories, and exotic yet oddly familiar cultures, you may love this Indian novel about the decline and fall of a family of high-caste Syrian Christians, told from the point of view of seven-year-old twins. |  Order now! |
The Complete Saki |
Saki was the epitome of Edwardian British wit, and if you enjoy tall tales of devious comeuppances, wickedly funny rejoinders, and outrageous behavior practiced upon the more pompous members of the upper class, you will find this book a treasure from heaven. | Order now! |
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie |
Muriel Spark’s best-known novel, and certainly a good one, it examines the influence of a charismatic Scots schoolmistress on her students. |  Order now! |
The Girls of Slender Means |
In 1940s London, respectable girls of slender means live together in a boarding house. Somewhat autobiographical, like many of Spark’s novels, this one’s tone is more muted and perhaps even kinder than most, without sacrificing the author’s usual keen observation and inimitable style. |  Order now! |
War in Heaven |
Imagine that you’re a well-meaning sort humbly earning your living editing books for a London publisher. If you find a dead person under a desk in the office, does that mean you’re a character in a murder mystery, or merely that an author whose book was always listed as “temporarily out of stock” turned homicidal? In this case, neither; our mild-mannered hero simply hasn’t figured out that his boss is heavily into black magic and will stop at nothing to get what he wants (in this case, the Holy Grail). | Order now! |
All Hallow’s Eve |
I think this is probably my favorite Williams novel. It opens in London just after World War II, with Lester Furnival standing on a bridge slowly realizing that she is no longer alive. Her spiritual journey is intermingled with the very different journeys of her friends Evelyn (also dead) and Betty (alive, but under the control of a mother who bore her solely for purposes of sorcery). As usual, Williams’ prose is poetic and his insights into the human psyche are deft. | Order now! |
Many Dimensions |
Secretary Chloe Burnett and her employer, Lord Chief Justice Arglay, find themselves caught up in disputes whether the slimy scholar Giles Tumulty had the right to buy the crown of Solomon, and whether it is blasphemous or merely practical to use the stone in the crown as a means of (physical, temporal, or psychological) transport. | Order now! |
The Place of the Lion |
I believe this one was C.S. Lewis’ favorite of Williams’ novels. This time we find the lovely but somewhat arrogant Damaris Tighe too preoccupied with her study of the medieval schoolmen to pay any mind to what they were actually writing about. She disdains her father’s butterfly collecting and pays little mind to the man who loves her. Of course, she hardly expects that the world around her will undergo a wild shift in which everything is subsumed into its essential archetype. | Order now! |
The Greater Trumps |
If your irritating father (who is a Warden in Lunacy) acquires some antique tarot cards and your gypsy boyfriend schemes to get them for his own family, all thunder may break loose. Of course, that’s oversimplifying the plot of this novel to extremes. | Order now! |
Arthurian Torso |
A marvelous poetry cycle about King Arthur and the Round Table. While it draws on Malory and other standard Arthurian sources, this telling is as unlike them as it is unlike White’s (also wonderful) The Sword in the Stone. This is not Tennyson’s Lady in the Lake, not remotely like any other Arthurian version you’ve ever read. | Order now! |
Essential Writings in Spirituality and Theology |
I confess I haven’t read this one, but nothing by Charles Williams has ever disappointed me. | Order now! |
The Figure of Beatrice: A Study in Dante |
Another confession: I read this nearly 20 years ago when I was reading Dante, and it was good but I don’t recall the details clearly. I don’t have a perfect memory, but here’s your chance to round out your Charles Williams collection. | Order now! |
Descent of the Dove |
Same as above, mea culpa! | Order now! |
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Feminism and Art History: Questioning the Litany, |
A good selection of influential feminist art historical essays. One of the basic books in this field. | Order now! |
Women, Art, and Society, |
This one does a good job of synthesizing a great deal of feminist art history and theory. Readers who have already read widely in the field may find the material here familiar ground, but even they should find it a useful reference book. It’s compact, clearly written, and generously illustrated; belongs in everyone’s art history library. |  Order now! |
Significant Others: Creativity and Intimate Partnership |
A fascinating book for anyone curious about how things work out for couples when both are serious artists or writers. Discusses the lives and work of such famous artistic pairs as Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin, Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington. | Order now! |
In Her Own Image: Women Working in the Arts, by Elaine Hedges and Ingrid Wendt |
Another useful book for anyone serious about learning more about women artists. | Order now! |
Women Artists: An Illustrated History by Nancy Heller |
Makes a fine gift book for anyone who’s just beginning to learn about women artists, and a must-have anyway due to the beautiful color reproductions. | Order now! |
Originals: American Women Artists by Eleanor Munro |
Profiles of a diverse selection of twentieth-century American artists. Maybe not a must-have for everyone, but still an interesting read and valuable resource. | Order now! |
Art Talk: Conversations with Twelve Women Artists by Cindy Nemser |
One of those essential books for anyone interested in twentieth-century art and/or feminism. Very lively interviews done in the seventies; a classic. | Order now! Or get the new edition with 15 interviews |
Women, Art and Power and Other Essays by Linda Nochlin |
This one is a classic of late-twentieth-century feminist art history and theory. Vital for anyone studying (or interested in) western art. | Order now! |
Vision and Difference: Femininity, Feminism and the Histories of Art by Griselda Pollock |
Griselda Pollock is one of the foremost British writers on feminist art history. Like most of the British writers in this field, she can be rather theoretical and her writing a bit dense, but don’t let that put you off; her ideas are interesting and provocative. | Order now! |
Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology by Arlene Raven, Cassandra L. Langer, and Joanna Frueh |
These are some of the major essays in this field; don’t pass it up. | Order now! |
American Women Sculptors by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein |
A massive reference book with lots of black-and-white pictures. The sheer number of sculptors covered is amazing. | Order now! |
Women Artists in the Modern Era: A Documentary History by Susan Waller |
This useful book provides more than 60 primary source documents regarding women artists from the 18th century on. | Order now! |
These books seem to be out of print or out of stock. You can still try searching for them via Amazon.com (see below). Remember, demand motivates publishers to reprint books!
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HTML for the World Wide Web |
I found this book the best quick reference for basic HTML coding. It’s not gorgeous or inspiring, it just helps you get the job done. Sometimes that’s what you need most. |  Order now! |
Web Graphics Tools and Techniques |
This is a great book for ideas, and has pretty good instructions considering that it was translated from Dutch. I’ve used it a lot. |  Order now! |
Creating Killer Web Sites |
Everyone recommends this book; okay, I’ll join the crowd. The author takes a bit of a style-police stance in his crusade against horizontal rules, but his emphasis on good typography and page layout is refreshing. I was relieved to learn that my preference for very simple, non-nested tables was not mere naivete. |  Order now! |
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A Tree Is Nice |
When I was very young, I had many favorite books, especially those with pictures that got my imagination going. This one is still in print, and for good reason. A good present for anyone who no longer uses books as chew and teething toys. |  Order now! |
D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths |
This is one of the main books I learned to read with. I read and reread it countless times and became passionate about Greek art and mythology as a result. I took this book just about everywhere until I was 11 or so, and still refer to it when I need to look up characters in Greek myth and legend. It’s available in paperback, but get the hardcover if you don’t want to keep replacing it. |  Order now! |
Harriet the Spy |
The possibility exists that I might not have become a writer had I not read Harriet the Spy. People aged 9 to 13 will identify most passionately with Harriet and her difficulties, but it is one of those books a person has to reread from time to time in later life, if only to be reminded just what it was like to be 11 years old. I hope the current edition has the author’s illustrations, which should be as inseparable from the text as Tenniel’s Alice or Pauline Baynes’s Narnia illustrations. |  Order now! |
