Critical Mass

It's hard to judge how many writers have been displaced, dislocated and disoriented by Katrina and aftermath. This is the tenth in our series, Thinking About New Orleans.James Lee Burke,

Reading Elfriede Jelinek is always a defensive passion for me. I loved her newest novel, “Greed,” as I have everything this brilliant woman has produced. Undoubtedly, she is a fierce

I just finished Joshua Clark's Heart Like Water, a beautifully written, sometimes comic, sometimes angry, always gripping memoir of his days in New Orleans during and after Katrina, Rita and the tragic

Like my 23 colleagues on the NBCC board of directors, much of my “discretionary” reading time is devoted to examining books that might end up as winners in each of

I have an oppressive list of books I’m supposed to be reading, but on the insistence of a friend, I picked up a copy of “Old Filth” by Jane Gardam (Europa Editions). I

I'm reading Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea, which was I think a bit of a succes de scandale when it was first published in Arabic in Lebanon two years ago.

As we tip toward the holiday, NBCC board member Ellen Heltzel sends this dispatch: The most remarkable book I've read this summer is “The Song Before It Is Sung,” by Justin