by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Jan 5, 2009 | craft of writing, details, reviews, stories |
Last Night is a slim volume of ten stories by James Salter. James is his real name. Salter is a pseudonym adopted because he was in the air force when he began to write. He was a fighter pilot who flew with Buzz Aldrin, Ed White and Gus Grissom. In July of 2004,...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 15, 2008 | reviews |
Reading Willa Cather’s The Song of the Lark is like breathing in art, instead of air. It’s in the words chosen by the author, in Thea’s artistic pursuit of her voice (a lark, of course, known for its beautiful songs), and in Thea’s love of the...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 14, 2008 | reviews |
I felt like I was reading in slow motion, floating along on the words of Willa Cather. The Song of the Lark is rich. The words paint pictures and hold you. Impossible to skip any. It’s one of the best books I’ve read all year. The full text is...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Dec 3, 2008 | first novels, reviews |
How do you tell a story? First sentence: “The man arrived after morning prayers.” The first paragraph goes on to paint the scene of that morning. “The man waited, and the boys watched…” The second paragraph drops back to explain: ...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Nov 28, 2008 | Pam Houston, reviews |
I just finished Toni Morrison’s new novel, A Mercy. Which was amazing. Yet I now regret that, while I was reading it, I spent so much time trying to figure out the story. I believe that if I had just let myself succumb to the effect of the words, the story...
by Cynthia Newberry Martin | Nov 24, 2008 | memoir, memory, reviews |
Remembering the Bone House is one of my all-time favorite books. Nancy Mairs wrote this memoir in 1989. It was out of print for a while, but then Beacon Press did a new printing in 1995, for which the author wrote a new preface. In it, she called...
