Topic: Joan Didion

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Bestselling books the week of 6/28/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/21/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/14/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/7/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 1/12/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.

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Vivid verbs defended with verve

Constance Hale's 'Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch' is a good read on writing, especially on the power of verbs.
Moving toward the correct answer on this one

Looking to settle the toward vs. towards question, the Monitor’s language columnist discovers the excrescent “t.”
Bestselling books the week of 6/28/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/21/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/14/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 6/7/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 1/12/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Bestselling books the week of 1/5/12, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark

Pauline Kael became the voice for a new generation of film-goers.
Progress report: Getting better globally

Up close, there are grave problems in the world -- hunger, repression, discrimination, violence. But when you take the long view, you can see evidence of progress on many fronts.
Bestselling books the week of 12/1/11, according to IndieBound*

What's selling best in independent bookstores across America.
Blue Nights

Didion's devastating new memoir explores loss in all its forms, to powerful effect.
2 debut novels worth drooling over

This fall is crowded with new releases from literary heavyweights from Tom Perrotta and Jeffrey Eugenides to Joan Didion and Haruki Marukami. But it also offers two new names worth searching out: Erin Morgenstern and Chad Harbach, both of whose debut novels offer readers a chance to dive into fully realized worlds. In one, it’s a 19th-century traveling circus that’s open only at night; in the other, it’s a Midwestern baseball field. Both novels feature protagonists who are the very best at what they do. (Morgenstern and Harbach are no slouches, either.)
Fall books: 20 nonfiction titles you don't want to miss

From the energy crisis to The Doors, from Hitler’s Germany to Rin Tin Tin, here are the nonfiction titles that have readers buzzing this fall.
5 good reasons to embrace the fall reading season

Are you a reader? Don't be afraid to say goodbye to summer. Good things are in store!
Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

How one woman used books to cope with her sister's death.
Joan Didion: my refuge from lousy writing

A Joan Didion book is like a pearl: compressed, beautiful, and hard as a rock.
6 books that hurt so good

For years, people have been guessing at why, as a species, we love to do things like watch hideously depressing movies or read paralyzingly sad books. And while I’m sure any analyst could have a field day teasing apart just what causes a sad-book propensity, what I’m going to do is to put forth a generally applicable theory and then leave you with a selection of titles that will make you hurt so good. Books with heart-breaking plot points, utterly unlikable characters, dysfunction piled atop dysfunction simply must redeem themselves through the clarity of their prose and the ingenuity of their structure. In other words, when the content is unlovely the form must be brilliant. Great writing shines through unadulterated.
Let’s Take the Long Way Home

How do you say goodbye to a once-in-a-lifetime friendship?
The Fiddler in the Subway

This collection of features by Pulitzer prize winner Gene Weingarten confirms his reputation as one of the best.
'Driving Miss Daisy' to debut on Broadway this fall

'Driving Miss Daisy' with James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave will start Oct. 7 at the John Golden Theatre.
Imperial

For the brave reader ready to tackle it, this sprawling text offers a fascinating glimpse of a corner of America at work.
A Jury of Her Peers

Elaine Showalter’s absorbing tour of the American women writers’ pantheon.
No Fairy Tale for a Commoner

John Burnham Schwartz’s new novel imagines the lives of Japanese royals.
No fairy tale for a mere commoner

John Burnham Schwartz's new novel imagines the lives of Japanese royals