Three Very Different Books Connected By a Quest for Identity The Gooze Fritz, by Sergei Lebedev (New Vessel Press) There’s a natural inclination to fill in the missing pieces of our personal narratives. It partially stems from the belief that understanding where you come from, can ultimately shape where you’re going. Such stories allow us […]
Pete Buttigieg and the Love that Dare Not Speak its Name
If Peter Buttigieg was only the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Twitter would care less about what he reads. But he is running for the highest office in the land, and that makes a difference. Aaron Hicklin People love lists almost as much as they love to hate them. Take our latest, by the Democratic […]
Wheels Within Wheels: Revisiting Slaughterhouse-Five
“All of this happened, more or less.” The famous opening line of Slaughterhouse-Five, is a tease of a sentence. Is Vonnegut giving us a memoir, or fiction? Or is he challenging the very nature of memoir? Who says that fiction is any less true than non-fiction? In an era when memoirs are frequently unmasked as […]
Your Next 1969 Book Club Assignment is Here
If you’ve wrapped Slaughterhouse-Five (details on this weekend’s discussion below), you should be ready for book two of our 1969 Book Club list: Graham Greene’s comic novel, Travels with My Aunt.
In the Rarified World of Book Buying, Age is Still Valued Above Youth
The specialized world of rare book sellers has come into focus again thanks to the Oscar-nominated movie, Can You Ever Forgive Me? But although diminished by Amazon, high end book buyers cling on. In her best-selling memoir, 84 Charing Cross Road, the American writer Helene Hanff captured a vanished world in which an English book buyer, […]
1969 Bookclub: Your Reading Assignment is Here
We invited you to help us whittle 20 books published in 1969 down to ten, and we’re now ready to kick off One Grand’s 1969 Book Club. We’re giving readers a month to read our first choice of the year, Kurt Vonnegut’s “famous Dresden book,” as he wryly refers to Slaughterhouse-Five in his introduction. A […]
1969 Book Club: Poll Update
Graham Greene leads the nominations. Margaret Atwood is running close. With almost 150 votes cast, the line-up for the 1969 Book Club is shaping up to be a perfect gender balance with books by men, and five books by women. Iconic 1969 novels, Portnoy’s Complaint, Slaughterhouse Five, and The Left-Hand of Darkness are all polling […]
The 1969 Book Club is Here
Vote for ten books you want to read (or reread) from the year of Woodstock, Stonewall and Nixon’s inauguration – and join us on a literary journey. One Grand Books is launching its first book club, and we’re inviting you to join us—whether local or long-distance readers. In the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, Stonewall, and […]
Talking to the Yellow Vests
We are in an emergency, that’s for certain. France is on edge at present, on fire. France is angry. Very angry. And nobody can say that this anger emanating from the lower middle class is unjustified. No. There is consensus on that, on its legitimacy. People really have had enough of paying even more tax, […]
Five Favorite Cookbooks That Make Perfect Holiday Gifts
The Holidays are here, and what better time than now to crack open a new cookbook and learn some new tricks for the dinner table.
