My friend Bob Hay passed away last year, and I learned only recently that he left me a box of notebooks full of his poetry. I guess that makes me his literary executor, which I consider a great honor. I …

I’ve been having great fun reading an excellent biography of Edmund Wilson by Jeffrey Meyers, who tells the tale of three college chums.

Edmund Wilson, John Peale Bishop, and F. Scott Fitzgerald all went to Princeton together in 1915, and …

So how am I doing? Great! Ever since I started rereading The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo. Here in the Happy Valley in July of 2019, it’s 80 degrees and sunny. In Stockholm, in November of …

‘ve been reading two biographies simultaneously: Edmund Wilson by Jeffrey Meyers  and Savage Beauty: Edna St. Vincent Millay by Nancy Milford. It’s a truly fascinating study. The scion of an upper-middle-class family in Red Bank, NJ, and the genius child …

I went to New Haven this weekend for my 45th college reunion. Not too many of my classmates showed up. I don’t think the class of 1974 identifies much with the institution. Some buddies of mine live in Niantic and …

I’ve been greatly enjoying Nancy Milford’s biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay title ‘Savage Beauty’.  Millay at one time was the best known poet in America, reading to sold-out houses all across the country. The famous literary critic and author …

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Readers of Sue Grafton’s Alphabet Series know that her heroine, Kinsey Millhone, was orphaned at the age of five and raised by her Aunt Gin, who died when Kinsey was in her twenties. So, at least at the start of …