Lost in Eliot
/The books we reread say a lot about who we are or who we hope to be. They also shape us, as Rebecca Mead discovers in exploring her own long relationship with George Eliot’s Middlemarch.
Read MoreTitle Menu: Twoo Wuv
/February would be unremittingly bleak if it weren't for the excuse it gives us to ponder the meaning of love, that many-splendored thing. Our editors offer up their favorite literary treatments.
Read MoreOur Year in Reading 2013
/In this annual retrospective, the Open Letters team looks back on the highlights of our 2013 reading.
Read MoreBridget of Sighs
/The new Bridget Jones novel will make you laugh and cry — but it might also make you fret, as it continues the series’ ongoing celebration of incompetence. Is blue soup really the best we can hope for, or the most we should strive for?
Read MoreAn Inglorious Life
/Elizabeth Gilbert’s ambitious novel imagines the life of a 19th-century woman botanist, as insightful as Darwin but lost to history. It’s an interesting project, and a worthy one, but does the novel live up to its premise?
Read MoreSummer Reading 2013
/In our annual feature, the Open Letters team offers suggestions for summer reading that take you off the beaten path of blockbusters and beach novels.
Read MoreSummer Reading 2013 continues
/In part two of our seasonal feature the Open Letters staff recommends another trove of unconventional books – and a few old favorites, too.
Read MoreFrom the Archives: Summer Reading 2012 Continues
/Our feature continues, as more Open Letters folk share their annual Summer Reading recommendations!
Read MoreIt Might Have Been
/In life there are no second chances, no do-overs. But what if we could keep trying until we got it right? Kate Atkinson explores the possibilities in a novel that just might win her a coveted literary prize or two.
Read MoreWe've Been with Lizzie All Along
/A conversation about the enduring appeal of Pride & Prejudice.
Read MoreOur Year in Reading 2012
/In this special feature, we look back at some highlights of the reading we did in 2012.
Read MoreOur Year in Reading 2012 Continues
/In this special feature, we look back at some highlights of the reading we did in 2012.
Read MorePerformance Anxiety
/What does it mean to say “only the music matters?” In her bleakly intelligent new novel, Lynne Sharon Schwartz challenges us to consider what we really value in music and how our own demand for superhuman perfection strips it of its soul.
Read MoreBook Review: The Life of George Eliot
/A careful and discerning new biography tackles that most daunting of all great Victorian novelists, George Eliot - with largely praiseworthy results.
Read MoreAll the World to Nothing
/The real mystery of Richard III is not the fate of his nephews, the Princes in the Tower, but why we never tire of telling and re-telling his story. What do we really see when we stare at his enigmatic portrait?
Read MoreAbandonment, Richness, Surprise
/Impressionistic, idiosyncratic, unsubstantiated: Virginia Woolf's literary essays challenge us to rethink, not just our experience of reading, but our expectations of criticism itself.
Read MoreOur Year in Reading
/In this special feature, we look back at some highlights of the reading we did in 2011
Read MoreOur Year in Reading Goes On
/More highlights from our 2011 reading
Read MoreDesultory Vivacity
/Does marriage mean much anymore? Does the novel? Jeffrey Eugenides sets out to reinvent the classic literary story—but can he combine the style and the substance of the greats he hopes to update to our times?
Read MoreSummer Reading 2011
/In this year's special feature, our team of avid readers offered some suggestions for books a little off the beaten path of summer blockbusters.
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