All Books Articles

After she woke up, a woman told her husband, "I just dreamed that you gave me a pearl necklace for Valentine's day. What do you think it means?" "You'll know tonight." he said. That evening, the man came home with a small package and gave it to his wife. Delighted, she opened it - to find a book entitled "The Meaning of Dreams." Read more...

If I were in Paris now, you could find me having lunch at Rose Bakery, 46 rue des Martyrs. It's my favorite restaurant in Paris -- and I've never been there. But I have Rose Carrarini's book, Breakfast, Lunch, Tea and it conveys so much of the spirit of her establishment that I know I'd love to be at Rose Bakery -- not just for her food, but for the ambience, the people who work there, the Read more...

They know their best buddies can be naughty (wrecking the sofa -- again). Or their best buddies can be nice (volunteering to be a sickbed foot warmer). But pet owners can't resist pet books, no matter how their furry or feathered friends have behaved during the past year. Here's a sample of some of the best books for animal lovers this season: "Hip-Hop for Dogs" by Janet Perr; Read more...

I met Rust Hills at a party on Nantucket. He was sitting in a lawn chair, nursing a drink. Though he was 81, he had the look of an aging preppy -- khakis and a button-down oxford shirt. I asked if I might join him; he inspected my button-down shirt and khakis, and nodded. And thus began one of the most pleasant hours of my life. Rust Hills had no idea who I was, but I knew a lot about him -- Read more...

Creamed turkey. Curried turkey. Turkey a la king. Turkey potpies. Turkey macaroni casserole ... If only Ebenezer Scrooge had not, in the excitement of his transformation from miser to humanitarian, diverged from the traditional Christmas goose to surprise Bob Cratchit with a turkey "twice the size of Tiny Tim." But -- alas -- he did, and as "A Christmas Carol" approaches its Read more...

Wearing Wall Street pinstripes, The Cat in the Hat showed up in mid-September. His timing couldn't have been worse: He wrecked the joint just as our credit cards were redlining. Now we've got this awful mess to clean up -- and holiday giving to confront. I refuse to contribute to the gloom by suggesting that you scribble gift cards for free backrubs to your loved ones. I say: Rise above Read more...

Malcolm Gladwell's two humongous best sellers, "The Tipping Point" and "Blink," share a shake-and-bake recipe that helps explain their popularity. Both popularize scientific, sociological and psychological theories in a fashion that makes for lively chatter about Big Intriguing Concepts: "The Tipping Point" promotes the notion that ideas and fads spread in much Read more...

I knew him oh-so-slightly. We shared a dinner or two with the art crowd. And I wrote a piece about him, which revealed an amusing fact -- he had a very good sense of how much the books in his library weighed, more or less to the ton. His own books? I only read a couple. Why bother if you could stand to wait for the movies? But one Crichton book -- rarely mentioned, not suitable for Read more...

Why did a British magazine name Simon Hopkinson's first effort -- Roast Chicken and Other Stories -- "the most useful cookbook of all time"? Because it's a book for cooks, not chefs. The irony, of course, is that Hopkinson used to be a noted British chef and restaurateur. It's just that he much prefers being at home with his pets, cooking great food for friends. And he sees no Read more...

Samantha Ettus conceived of the third book in her "Experts' Guide" series well before mortgages started to tumble and crater the rest of the economy. I know because, unaccountably, she asked me to be one of her 100 experts for The Experts' Guide to Doing Things Faster: 100 Ways to Make Life More Efficient. [About what? you may ask. Read on.] In that long-ago world, we might want to Read more...

A great many people are reading The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life. It's almost 1,000 pages long, and if there's anything about Warren Buffett that isn't there, I'd be surprised. I haven't read it -- all those pages! -- but at the earliest possible opportunity I'm going to consult the index, in the hope of learning how Buffett maintained a marriage and a mistress Read more...

NEW YORK - Barnes & Noble is playing the social network game. The superstore chain on Monday launched "My B&N," where online shoppers can set up personal pages focusing on their interests in books, film and music. They can also share information with Facebook and other social networks. "Through My B&N, book lovers everywhere can create their literary identity, Read more...

If you want to get back to nature -- back to human nature -- one of the best ways is to read. At least that seems to be a conclusion drawn in a recent National Endowment for the Arts study. More and more studies show that human beings are "born to read." Something in the pace and practice of reading helps them process information better and make better sense of the world. There's a Read more...

In the middle of September of 2008, as the Senate of the United States was pondering an energy bill, all 100 Senators were invited to speak at a Bipartisan Energy Summit. With a national election less than two months away, you may imagine the posturing. But you might not have anticipated this minute-long question. [Watch it here.] Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Sheldon Whitehouse, Senator Read more...

My friend J. can meditate at will. He sits, closes his eyes and off he goes. Anywhere. Anytime. I'm jealous. All I can do is read about meditation. Pore over the teaching stories and the chronicles of inner travel, inhale the biographies of the great monks. But when I sit? My mind makes to-do lists. So I was pleased to discover -- 35 years after it was published, with more than 300,000 copies Read more...

In the beginning, this book annoyed the hell out of me. Here's the set-up: "In October of 2003, my stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died 37 days later." Tragic. Though I can't imagine, I can empathize. But then comes the goopy stuff: The time frame of 37 days made an impression on me. We often live as if we have all the time in the world, but the Read more...

In the beginning, Life Is a Verb: 37 Days to Wake Up, Be Mindful, and Live Intentionally by Patti Digh annoyed the hell out of me. Here's the set-up: "In October of 2003, my stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died 37 days later." Tragic. Though I can't imagine, I can empathize. But then comes the goopy stuff: The time frame of 37 days made an impression on Read more...

Book review of Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson (Vintage Books, 2000) Isaac Cline was more than a meteorologist. He was also a doctor. A fastidious dresser, a model citizen, a pillar of his community. As the 1900s began, he was a man of his time --- a man of certainty. Galveston was not, he believed, in any danger from hurricanes. The very idea that Galveston could be seriously damaged by a Read more...

Sep. 24--HINSDALE, N.H. -- As students arrived at Hinsdale Elementary Tuesday morning, they were greeted by someone in a Strawberry Shortcake costume standing on the roof of their school. Underneath the mask of the children's icon was Jurg Jenzer, principal at the school, waving to the giggling students as they made their way to class. Jenzer was adorned in the American Greetings Read more...

If you read nothing else this year, get your hands on Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation and read pages 201 to 253. It won't take long. By the time Nelson Mandela walks into that stadium, your heart will be pounding. By the time he walks into the Springboks locker room, you'll be in tears. And you'll cry pretty much straight through to the end. All Read more...