Essays & Musings
What We’ve Been Thinking About
Thoughts on books, reading, culture, and the literary life.
My favorite mysteries, part one
April 11, 2026no pat plots here
Read Article
The New Fear of Being Cut Off by Your Children
April 7, 2026the silencing of the rents
Read Article
The Invisible Circus by Jennifer Egan: a reivew
April 2, 2026it was very much like this
Read Article
Please, don’t feed the (feral) cats.
March 30, 2026save the birds
Read Article
Parsing the Polls
March 25, 2026I have been going over the data from all of AAR’s Top 100 Romance polls. My goal is to get a sense of what romances readers have most loved overy…
Read Article
Analyzing readers’ favorite romance novels over the past three decades
March 24, 2026parsing the data
Read Article
the AAR Top 100 Romances (2026)
March 20, 2026looks like a canon to me–more on that later
Read Article
The AAR Top 100 Romances Poll (2026)
March 20, 2026The votes are in and the romance novels AAR readers have chosen as the Top 100 Romances are set. This is a reader generated list. The list is in alphabetical…
Read Article
Reading poetry in bed
March 19, 2026it’s better than a gummy
Read Article
The Top Ten Romances in our Top 100 Romance Poll
March 16, 2026Thank you to all who voted in the AAR Top 100 Romances poll. This is a reader determined poll and we are thrilled so many participated. Later this week, we…
Read Article
The Incredible Shrinking Star
March 14, 2026thin is in and that’s not good
Read Article
The Kids on the Lawn
March 8, 2026when beer is better with toddlers
Read Article
