by Michiko Kakutani
Reviewed by Linda:
This gorgeously designed book is a quick read, but you’ll want to have a notepad handy because the former chief book critic of the New York Times and Pulitzer Prize-winning literary critic has enough reading suggestions to keep you sated for a long time. Some of my favorites - Lab Girl, The Liar’s Club, and Atonement - were included. So were many titles you would expect to see—the plays of William Shakespeare, novels by Toni Morrison, The Plague by Camus - as well as some fascinating surprise picks - a selection of books about Muhammad Ali, a graphic novel, the Harry Potter novels. Four of Amherst resident Joseph Ellis’s books are included. Her essays about each selection are pithy and deeply satisfying.