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On a crisp Saturday morning that screamed for adventure, a former tin can factory in North Kansas City, Mo. thrummed with the sound of young people climbing, sliding, spinning, jumping, exploring and reading. If you think this is a silent activity, you haven’t spent time in a first grade classroom. And if you think all indoor destinations for young people are sticky, smelly, depressing hellholes, check your assumptions at the unmarked front door. They’ve transformed the hulking old building into a series of settings lifted straight from the pages of beloved picture books.

Persons: haven’t, Pete Cowdin, Deb Pettid, They’ve Locations: North Kansas City, Mo

☆ How to Deal With a Narcissist
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-28 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | More About Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“Narcissist” is a word many of us throw around casually, using it to describe anyone from an energy vampire to a friend who posts too many selfies on Instagram. But as Ramani Durvasula makes clear in her best-selling book, “It’s Not You,” the people who actually fit the bill are more complicated, wily and attention-seeking than we might imagine. Depressed people go to therapy because they’re uncomfortable with their depression; anxious people go to therapy because they’re uncomfortable with their anxiety. I want to stop that.’ That’s not the conversation.”So how does a narcissist-adjacent friend or family member navigate a relationship with someone who won’t change? It might sound like common sense, but the goal is to shift the focus away from the narcissist and onto your own well-being.

Persons: “, Durvasula, ‘, ’ That’s, ”

☆ Book Club: Let’s Talk About Barbara Kingsolver’s ‘Demon Copperhead’
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-16 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Barbara Kingsolver’s novel “Demon Copperhead,” a riff on “David Copperfield” that moves Charles Dickens’s story to contemporary Appalachia and grapples engagingly with topics from poverty to ambition to opioid addiction, was one of the Book Review’s 10 Best Books of 2022. And — unlike an actual copperhead — “Demon Copperhead” has legs: Many readers have told us it was their favorite book in 2023 as well. In this week’s spoiler-filled episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin talks with his colleagues Elisabeth Egan (also an editor at the Book Review) and Anna Dubenko, The Times’s newsroom audience director, about Kingsolver’s novel and its enduring appeal. We’d love to hear what you loved (or didn’t) about “Demon Copperhead.” Share those thoughts in the comments and we’ll try to weigh in. I read a pre-publication galley, so when I read it, I didn’t have anyone to discuss it with and that almost killed me.

Persons: Barbara Kingsolver’s, “ David Copperfield, Charles Dickens’s, MJ Franklin, Elisabeth Egan, Anna Dubenko, we’ll, … Elisabeth Egan, “ Locations: Appalachia

☆ How Maurice Sendak Lived With His Own Wild Things
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On a frigid Wednesday afternoon, sunbeams poured into Maurice Sendak’s studio in Ridgefield, Conn., crisscrossing one another with the precision and warmth of the children’s books that were born in this room. Sendak died almost 12 years ago, but his studio is exactly as he left it. Standing among Sendak’s books, art and ephemera, it was easy to imagine that he’d stepped out for his daily three-mile jaunt down Chestnut Hill Road. Surely he’d come back, pop in a Mozart CD and get cracking on a new project. There were his walking sticks by the front door; there were his poster paints, wearing price tags from an art store that closed in 2016.

Persons: sunbeams, Maurice Sendak’s, Sendak, he’d Locations: Ridgefield, Conn, cardigan, Chestnut

☆ Like Her Parents, Michele Norris Is a Person of Letters
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-01 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | More About Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

They read, simply, “Race. : “My beautiful Black boys deserve HOPE!” Eventually Norris created a website, The Race Card Project, where correspondents could share their stories. “The post office was full of people of color who were strivers like my parents,” Norris said. “They had stuff that didn’t get where it was supposed to go, and the post office would sell it if no one claimed it,” Norris said. “My parents would give us a small amount of money, which seemed like a lot of money to me.

Persons: Michele Norris, “, ”, ” Norris, Barbara Cooney’s, Norris, — Norris Locations: Starbucks, Bowie, Md, Minneapolis, Ames , Iowa

☆ Ashley Elston’s Signature Play? Unfurling the Butcher Paper.
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-18 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | More About Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Like athletes who adhere to specific routines on game day, writers have their own tools and routines for, shall we say, getting the ball into the end zone. As she approaches the end of her first draft, Elston pulls a six-foot sheet of brown butcher paper from a roll on a specially installed rod near her desk. This two-yard stretch then becomes a playing field for her story, beginning with chapter descriptions jotted on large sticky notes. She said in a phone interview, “If I can’t sum up what’s happening, maybe it shouldn’t be there. It has to have a purpose.” She went on, “I sit back in my chair and start thinking about what’s not working and how I need to move things around.”

Persons: Ashley Elston, Reese, ”, Elston, “, what’s

☆ Reading Her Own Audiobook, Jada Pinkett Smith Slaps Back
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-24 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WORTHY, by Jada Pinkett Smith. Let’s get one thing out of the way: If you’re downloading Jada Pinkett Smith’s memoir just to hear about the Slap, you have 14 hours, 3 minutes and 6 seconds of listening to do before you reach your goal. Smith’s voice is calm and steady throughout this chapter; it quavers elsewhere, especially when she describes the 1996 death of Tupac Shakur, who had been her friend, protector and ardent supporter since her sophomore year of high school. The chapter “The Holy Joke, the Holy Slap and Holy Lessons” appears near the end of her book for a reason: It’s not the point. Smith also opens up, generously, about her depression, her therapeutic journey and her spirituality.

Persons: Jada Pinkett Smith, Read, Let’s, Jada Pinkett, Smith, “ Worthy ”, Will Smith, Chris Rock, Tupac Shakur, ”, “ Locations: Baltimore, Hollywood, Chile

☆ Janet Evanovich Can Laugh at Her Own Mistakes
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-23 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Thirty books into her Stephanie Plum series, Janet Evanovich has her writing process down. She maintains two steno pads for each novel, including her latest. “I have about 60 pads for the Plums,” Evanovich said. But my method has remained the same.”But the steno system is not an exact science, Evanovich admitted. For instance, Stephanie Plum’s boyfriend, Joe Morelli, used to have a scar on his eyebrow.

Persons: Stephanie Plum, Janet Evanovich, ” Evanovich, Gabriela Rose, I’ve, Evanovich, Stephanie Plum’s, Joe Morelli, “, Valerie, ” Organizations: Fox Locations: South River, N.J, Naples, Fla

☆ For N.K. Jemisin, Reality Inspired Horror Fiction
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-19 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“I view horror as catharsis through entertainment,” Jordan Peele writes in “Out There Screaming,” the best-selling anthology of new Black horror he edited with John Joseph Adams. Jemisin, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Tochi Onyebuchi and Tananarive Due. Initially Jemisin declined to participate, although she was pleased to be approached. “I like writing stories, but I’m very slow to write them and I don’t do well with commissions,” Jemisin said in a phone interview. But we were on this trip with some teenagers and we told them, ‘Do not go out by yourselves because this doesn’t feel like a safe place to be a bunch of young Black folks.’”

Persons: ” Jordan Peele, John Joseph Adams, “, Jemisin, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Tochi, ” Jemisin, ’ Locations: Banks

☆ Kerry Washington Goes Deep
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-24 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In late July, Earl Washington was still working his way through the memoir. “It’s been hard,” Washington said. “He does a lot of processing with my husband.”Washington recalled a conversation with her father in which she told him: “‘I’m not going anywhere, you’re not going anywhere, you’re my dad. “I never want to say to people, ‘You have to tell your kid the truth,’” she said. “I do think it’s extraordinary how few rights I have as a donor kid.

Persons: Earl Washington, “ It’s, ” Washington, “, I’m, you’re, ”, ’ ” Locations: Washington, ”

☆ Do You Flip Past Epigraphs? Don’t Tell Angie Kim.
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-14 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This is understandable; dedications can be cryptic and the copyright information feels like it’s meant for someone else. Consider the three quotes at the beginning of Angie Kim’s best-selling “Happiness Falls,” which she said help explain what inspired her to write the novel. Ultimately Kim selected snippets from Emily Dickinson (“I lost a World — the other day!/Has anybody found?”); Stephen Hawking (“It’s a crazy world out there. Be curious”); and Antoine de Saint-Exupery, whose book “The Little Prince” provides the most important part of the trio, she said. “That was the first time I read ‘The Little Prince’ in English.”

Persons: Angie Kim’s, Kim, Emily Dickinson, “, Stephen Hawking, Antoine de Saint, Exupery, ”, I’m, —, ” Kim, ’ Locations: Seoul

☆ How Does a Best-Selling Author Name Her Characters?
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Suddenly she knew she wanted to write about him — or a character inspired by him — in her 21st book. The man was “utterly nondescript,” the suspense novelist said in a phone interview. “I could see that his apartment had no softness to it, nothing on the walls,” Jewell explained. “He’s Walter Fair.” She already had a few ideas brewing for the novel that would become her latest best seller, “None of This Is True.” But Walter Fair was, as she put it, “the key that opened the last door” to the rest of the story. A name won’t necessarily serve as a springboard to inspiration, but Jewell always puts a lot of stock in the christening of characters.

Persons: Lisa Jewell, —, “, ” Jewell, Jewell, Walter, I’ve, “ He’s Walter Fair, Walter Fair, “ It’s, Sarah, Mike, “ Fox, ”, Wolf, “ Lamb Locations: London

☆ One Morning in Maine, 225 People Went to the Library
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-25 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

It was a beach day, by Maine standards — slightly overcast and moderately balmy, with a hint of balsam in the air. But on a peak-summer morning in July, 225 people steered clear of state parks and went to Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick instead. They were young and old, in strollers and on walkers and strutting the latest technical sandals. They wore pigtails, baby slings, ironic T-shirts, a head scarf, a lobster hat, a crown, a tiara and halos of white hair. As “Sal” McCloskey, now 78, settled into an armchair at the front of Morrell Reading Room, a hush fell over the undulating sea of children at her feet.

Persons: Curtis, Sarah McCloskey, Sal ”, Robert McCloskey, Ducklings ”, “ Sal ” McCloskey, Morrell, Matilda, Pippi, Eloise, haven’t Organizations: Curtis Memorial Library Locations: Maine, Brunswick, strollers

☆ James McBride Doesn’t Read Reviews. Here’s Why.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-24 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Between these poles are all forms of social media; and, on a different continent but still the same planet, reviews printed in the font you’re reading now. When it comes to all of the above, James McBride takes a page from Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Like the titular clerk, McBride prefers not to — in his case, read reviews. I’m grateful that people read the work. If you’re writing about humans, you’ve got to be around humans. The big secret to writing good books is to stay around people, and not stay around what they write on the internet.”

Persons: James McBride, Herman Melville’s, Scrivener, McBride, “ I’m, ”, Danez Smith, ” McBride, “, I’m, I’ve, —, you’ve Locations: Columbia

☆ Want to Hear Michael Oher’s Version? Read His Books.
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-17 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the book’s prologue, he mentions that the Tuohys’ book, “In a Heartbeat: Sharing the Power of Cheerful Giving” (2010), came out while “I Beat the Odds” was underway. Oher alludes to at least one conflict involving the family. “I’ve read some newspaper articles recently where Leigh Anne Tuohy is quoted as saying that I would either be dead from a shooting or the bodyguard to some gang leader if I hadn’t been taken in by their family,” he writes. It never would have worked if it had been one-sided: just me pushing but not knowing what to do with the opportunity; or them trying to guide me but me not being willing to do any of the work. There had to be a give and take.”

Persons: Oher, “ I’ve, Leigh Anne Tuohy, ”, “ Organizations: Briarcrest Christian Academy

☆ Jennette McCurdy Now Qualifies as a Veteran Best Seller
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-03 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It’s a message to Jennette McCurdy from Sean Manning, her editor at Simon & Schuster, announcing that her memoir, “I’m Glad My Mom Died,” is on the best-seller list for yet another week. McCurdy doesn’t pay close attention to where the book falls in the rankings — this week it’s at No. “Not one person has approached me for being an actor from the TV show they watched when they were little,” she said. “The dental assistant came in with her phone while I had the whole clip in my mouth,” McCurdy said. I love your book!’” McCurdy obliged.

Persons: Jennette McCurdy, Sean Manning, Simon, Simon & Schuster, “, ”, McCurdy, “ I’m, there’s, ” McCurdy, ’ ” McCurdy Organizations: Simon &

☆ How Does a Prolific Author Deal With Cold Feet?
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-27 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In the past six years, Riley Sager has published seven novels — all of them best sellers except his first, “Final Girls,” which won a 2018 International Thriller Writers Award. The Pennsylvania native reliably produces one book a year on a strict schedule that sounded remarkably uncomplicated (if dizzying) when he described it in a phone interview. “I usually start on Jan. 2 and keep writing until June,” Sager said. Thankfully for those of us who see the similarities between writing and having a cavity filled, Sager admitted that his seventh book did not go according to plan. “I always have some impostor syndrome going on at all times, but in the case of ‘The Only One Left,’ it just got so complicated narratively that I was lost and in the weeds.”

Persons: Riley Sager, “, ” Sager, ”, Sager Locations: Pennsylvania

☆ From Pet Cemetery Owner to Identity Thief to Best-Selling Ghostwriter
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-24 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“This whole street was filled with probably 10 sheriff’s cars. The neighbors were all standing here,” said Hardin, now 56. Hardin’s second husband was also arrested; their toddler went to emergency foster care. “There was no more, ‘I can talk my way out of this, I can spin a story.’ It was just over.”Before her cataclysmic nosedive, Hardin owned a pet cemetery. She is now a literary agent and ghostwriter who has collaborated on several best-selling books, including ones by the Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.

Persons: Tesla, Lara Love Hardin, ”, Hardin, Hardin’s, Desmond Tutu, Dalai, Oprah Organizations: ”, Stanford Locations: Aptos, Calif

☆ The Year Is Half Over. Here Are the Books You Might Have Missed.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-14 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

This week on the podcast, Gilbert Cruz is joined by fellow editors from the Book Review to revisit some of the most popular and most acclaimed books of 2023 to date. First up, Tina Jordan and Elisabeth Egan discuss the year’s biggest books, from “Spare” to “Birnam Wood.” Then Joumana Khatib, MJ Franklin and Sadie Stein recommend their personal favorites of the year so far. Books discussed on this week’s episode:“Spare,” by Prince Harry“I Have Some Questions for You,” by Rebecca Makkai“Pineapple Street,” by Jenny Jackson“Romantic Comedy,” by Curtis Sittenfeld“You Could Make This Place Beautiful,” by Maggie Smith“The Wager,” by David Grann“Master, Slave, Husband, Wife,” by Ilyon Woo“King: A Life,” by Jonathan Eig“Birnam Wood,” by Eleanor Catton“Hello Beautiful,” by Ann Napolitano“Enter Ghost,” by Isabella Hammad“Y/N,” by Esther Yi“The Sullivanians,” by Alexander Stille“My Search for Warren Harding,” by Robert Plunket“In Memoriam,” by Alice Winn“Don’t Look at Me Like That,” by Diana AthillWe would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to books@nytimes.com.

Persons: Gilbert Cruz, Tina Jordan, Elisabeth Egan, Birnam, Joumana Khatib, MJ Franklin, Sadie Stein, “, Prince Harry “, Rebecca Makkai, Jenny Jackson, Curtis Sittenfeld, Maggie Smith “, ”, David Grann, Ilyon Woo, Jonathan Eig, Eleanor Catton “, Ann Napolitano, Isabella Hammad “ Y, Esther Yi “, Alexander Stille, Warren Harding, Robert Plunket “, Alice Winn “, Diana Athill Locations: ”

☆ Revisiting ‘Bridget Jones’s Diary’ Plus the Art of Literary Translation
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks to Juliana Barbassa and Gregory Cowles about the Book Review’s special translation issue, and to Tina Jordan and Elisabeth Egan about the novel “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” which was published in the U.S. 25 years ago this summer. What makes translation an art? Why do we see so many translations from some countries and almost none from others? Before coming to the Book Review, she spent years reporting and editing international news, and says, “I would often find myself turning to the fiction produced in that place” to really get a sense of it. Also on this week’s episode, Elisabeth Egan and Tina Jordan discuss “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” published in the U.S. 25 years ago this summer.

Persons: Gilbert Cruz, Juliana Barbassa, Gregory Cowles, Tina Jordan, Elisabeth Egan, Bridget Jones’s, Cowles, “, ”, Egan, Bridget Jones Locations: U.S

☆ Pepperoncini Tuna Salad, Stuffed Into a Split Croissant
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Sam Sifton | More About Sam Sifton | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There are many thousands more recipes to cook this weekend awaiting you on New York Times Cooking. You may not be surprised to learn that you need a subscription to read them. Here’s Jenkins: “At the ages of 68 and 66, respectively, Evert and Navratilova have found themselves more intertwined than ever, by an unwelcome factor. ‘It was like, are you kidding me?’ Evert says.”My colleague Elisabeth Egan recently looked back at “Bridget Jones’s Diary” after 25 years. I liked Marian Bull on Rebecca May Johnson’s “Small Fires: An Epic in the Kitchen,” for n+1.

Persons: you’re, you’ve, Sally Jenkins, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Here’s Jenkins, “, Evert, Navratilova, ’ Evert, ”, Elisabeth Egan, “ Bridget Jones’s, “ Bridget Jones, Marian Bull, Rebecca May Johnson’s, ” Bull Organizations: New York Times, The Washington Post Locations: The, “

☆ Bridget Jones Deserved Better. We All Did.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

You couldn’t pass a Borders or Barnes & Noble megastore without catching Bridget’s cool blue-green gaze. Seemingly overnight, Bridget was to digital correspondence what Chandler Bing was to comic timing: a fresh metronome for the last gasp of the 20th century. She was the toast of book clubs, the subject of editorials, a lightning rod for morning-show debate and fodder for late-night comedy. Some readers were charmed by Bridget Jones; others were disgusted. That if we don’t enjoy our jobs, we just stick around and, heck, sleep with the boss (who never calls us back).”

Persons: Bridget Jones’s, “, ”, it’s “, ’ it’s, Elizabeth Gleick, ” “ Bridget Jones ”, Noble, ” “, —, Bridget, Chandler Bing, Bridget Jones, “ Bridget, ” Alex Kuczynski Organizations: Publishers Weekly, British Vogue, New York Times, Barnes Locations: British, ‘

☆ ‘The Bear’ Returns and More: The Week in Reporter Reads
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-30 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In Season 2, some things remain the same: the kitchen language (“Corner!” “Hands!” “Yes, Chef!”), the toothsome shots of food, the dad-rock soundtrack. But “The Bear” is no longer a war story that takes place in a kitchen. It is now a sports story that takes place in a kitchen. Poniewozik says that not just because the book “Leading With the Heart” by the basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski has a surprisingly totemic role. ◆ ◆ ◆Written and narrated by Elisabeth Egan

Persons: James Poniewozik, Poniewozik, Mike Krzyzewski, Berzatto, Jeremy Allen White, Michael, Jon Bernthal, ◆, Elisabeth Egan Organizations: New York Times Locations: Chicago

☆ She Played Hopscotch With Anne Frank. Her Story Will Live On Too.
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Not long after Hannah Pick-Goslar’s family relocated from Berlin to Amsterdam in 1933, her mother made a friend at the grocery store — a fellow Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany who was accompanied by a dark-eyed girl around Pick-Goslar’s age. “Anne had trouble whistling, so sometimes she’d just hum the tune,” according to Pick-Goslar’s best-selling memoir, “My Friend Anne Frank,” written with Dina Kraft and published on June 6, six days before what would have been the diarist’s 94th birthday. The teenagers last saw each other from opposite sides of a barbed-wire fence at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. “As she began to fade, I wrote of her life,” Kraft explains in an afterword to their book, which is based on hundreds of hours of interviews conducted in person and via Zoom. Hannah being Hannah — the nurse and caregiver and concerned person that she was for her whole life — kept checking up on me, texting, ‘Are you OK?’”

Persons: Hannah Pick, confidantes, “ Anne, “, Anne Frank, ”, Dina Kraft, Frank, she’d, Anne ”, ” Kraft, Kraft, Hannah, Hannah —, — Locations: Berlin, Amsterdam, Nazi Germany, Bergen, Belsen, Pick, Goslar, Switzerland, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem

☆ Kristin Harmel Helped Build the Village That Sustained Her
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-22 | by ( Elisabeth Egan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In March 2020, Kristin Harmel was gearing up for the paperback publication of her 11th novel, “The Winemaker’s Wife.” Then the world came to a grinding halt (and many of us who aren’t married to a winemaker wished we were). “We called it our Oh Hey Rosé Zoom,” she said in an audio-only interview. “We all had a glass of wine and got on the Zoom together.”On April 15, 2020, Harmel and a handful of those novelists hosted a Facebook Live for their fans. “This community we thought was going to be a few hundred people has now grown to 170,000 members,” Harmel said. By the time I woke up the next morning, I think there were at least 2,000 comments and probably 700 or 800 emails in my inbox.”

Persons: Kristin Harmel, aren’t, ”, “, Mary Kay Andrews, Andrews, Kristy Woodson Harvey, Patti Callahan Henry, ” Harmel Organizations: Facebook

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