Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Confessions: A Life of Failed Promises’ 

April 12, 2023

A literary critic admits his shortcomings. The writing life is full of potholes — long days and solitary nights followed by rewrites, rejections, and, for most, scant rewards. Upon publication […]

Of Inhuman Bondage: Colson Whitehead’s ‘The Nickel Boys’ Shines a Light on an Insidious Evil

February 8, 2023

Colson Whitehead is to American literature what the Rolls-Royce is to automobiles: revered and unrivaled. Having published eight novels, two books of nonfiction, and numerous essays and short stories, the […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Shine,’ a Path to Stardom

January 5, 2023

’Tis the season, and January is the time for New Year’s resolutions. So, in that spirit, Larry Thompson, a Hollywood magnate, offers his book, “SHINE: A Powerful 4-Step Plan for […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Shirley Hazzard: a Writing Life’ 

December 1, 2022

An entertaining, edifying look at the underappreciated Australian author Shirley Hazzard’s first short-story submission was plucked from a slush pile of 30,000 unsolicited manuscripts at the New Yorker by fiction […]

David Bruce Smith’s Grateful American Book Award Honors Michelle Coles 

November 9, 2022

No one hosts a more spectacular dinner party for a better cause than David Bruce Smith. His heavy parchment invitations of exquisite calligraphy arrive each fall to announce his Grateful […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘Manifesto: On Never Giving Up’ 

October 12, 2022

The Booker Prize-winning author owes it all to tenacity. And talent.  Reviewed by Kitty Kelley  If “perseverance is genius in disguise,” then Bernardine Evaristo is a 22-carat gold, diamond-encrusted genius. […]

‘Saving Freud: The Rescuers Who Brought Him to Freedom’ 

September 14, 2022

A Riveting Saga That Belongs on the Silver Screen.  Lights! Camera! Action!  Andrew Nagorski’s “Saving Freud” ought to be coming to a theater near you. This nonfiction work crackles like […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘My Place in the Sun: Life in the Golden Age of Hollywood and Washington’ 

August 17, 2022

Meet a fortunate son genuinely grateful for his luck.  Reviewed by Kitty Kelley  Sometimes, the sons of famous fathers are cursed. “They’re born on third base and think they’ve hit […]

‘Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History’ 

July 13, 2022

An edifying, bloated chronicle of what might’ve been.    “For all sad words of tongue and pen,  The saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’ ”  These woeful words from […]

Kitty Kelley Book Club: ‘The Summer Friend: A Memoir’

June 15, 2022

 A heartfelt, guarded ode to a seasonal pal.   The spectacular cover of Charles McGrath’s “The Summer Friend” deserves its own trophy. It shows a photograph of an apricot sun setting […]