Non Review

On Blank: The Power of Not Actually Thinking at All (2006) by Noah Tall

Love, Kill, Live

On Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (1986) by Patrick Süskind


In Grenouille, Süskind has created a beloved serial killer with a powerful sense  of smell. His beginning, a Dickens novel; his journey, a bildungsroman; his end, a Sartrian exit. More than an inspirational manual for murderers, Perfume is a treatise on the implosive relation between love and existence.

A Not So Sorry Story

On Love Story (1970) by Erich Segal

Oliver Barrett IV and Jennifer Cavilleri will be remembered by generations of lovers. Segal is a manipulative genius, juggling simplicity, restraint and surprise. Only a well-read mind so sick of trashy, bestselling romance novels could have written this short and sweet concoction of the finest ingredients of love stories through the ages.

Authoring an Author

On Bech is Back (1982) by John Updike

An uncanny and hilarious surfacing of a writer's mind as he enters his twilight years, dealing with writer's block, a global readership, marriage, and a much-changed publishing world. Will Updike’s Henry Bech hit another bestseller or are his few books doomed to shelf wear?

Dozing with Discomfort

On The Comfort of Strangers (1981) by Ian McEwan

Two couples, never alike in dignity, meet, and disaster could not have been spelled out more clearly. The unfolding, however, is excruciatingly slow. McEwan’s novella could be the most effective sedative since counting sheep. Sexual perversity has never been made so boring.