Francine Prose is simply one of the best storytellers around. Reading Like A Writer is almost a bible for would-be novelists.  And part of that bible tells would-be writers to read great novels.  They should start with Francine Prose.  Her novels are diverse and often hilarious, and always provocative.  Take a favorite of ours, Blue Angel, a scathing satire on the whole of academia, from self-serving professors to overindulged and talentless students, to the politically correct, and sometimes even admirable administrative policies (such as sexual…

Betty White is hot. Hot in Cleveland, to be sure, but really Hot in LA.  In her new book, If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won’t), Betty tells us something remarkable: that she came to the Mary Tyler Moore Show for a one-time appearance, in the fourth season.  She ended up staying for the duration of the run, for three additional seasons.  But in most seasons in which she appeared, Betty turned up in only five or six episodes.  Her impact on the…

April 11, 7:30 pm: Jacqueline Winspear and Cara Black in conversation with David Kipen Two private detectives, Maisie Dobbs and Aimee Leduc, live in two different eras and in two different countries.  They are both enormously popular,  extraordinarily delightful and take us into two vastly different ways of solving crimes. Jackie Winspear sets her Maisie Dobbs mysteries in the interwar years in and around London.  Maisie does have a telephone, and does have the occasional use of an automobile, but high tech ends there. World…

You know you’re desperate for another Michael Connelly novel when you’re walking on a city street, see a Lincoln Town Car, in a town full of Lincoln Town Cars, and wonder if perhaps itinerant attorney Mickey Haller is conducting his law practice inside the car.  You know you’re desperate for that new Michael Connelly novel when you just assume that Mickey Haller is on his way to or from trouble or dodging a bullet, or perhaps just preparing a brief.  But wait! If trouble is…