Category Updates
Thoughts on ‘Readings of Dreams from My Father’, Five Years Later
The publication history of Barack Obama’s Literary Legacy: Readings of Dreams from my Father began ten years ago. Its becoming deserves explanation. Why? Because it was nearly aborted due to lack of interest. The book itself was five years in the making. Now, five years after its publication, and 10 years after its inception, I […]
Amateurs and Experts
I’ve come to be regarded as an “expert” in some “fields.” One of those is the study of modern American Literatures. In recent years, I’ve written a lot about Don DeLillo, a writer who I have read and enjoyed for decades. I’ve written a book about his career, I’ve served as advisory editor to publications, […]
Writers in the Crowd: Thoughts on writing Reference works
“Some books,” Poe’s narrator notes, “refuse to be read.” These are the famous closing lines of “The Man of the Crowd,” an enigmatic story about a man who follows a stranger through the city night. In the end we learn nothing yet everything about the stranger and his world. A similar heuristic helps us to […]
Rare Books & De Luxe Editions 