Liars and Saints

Here's my to-do list. What's yours? *Natalia Ginzburg, Family Lexicon * Anita Brookner, The Debut * Jim Thompson, Pop. 1280 * Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Fleishman Is in Trouble *Natalia Ginzburg, Happiness, as Such *Lillian Ross, Picture *Kate Atkinson, Big Sky *Georges Simenon, Maigret's First Case *Becky Masterman, We Were Killers Once *Philip Roth, Everyman * Denise Mina, Conviction * Muriel Spark, Loitering with Intent * Donna Leon, Beastly Things * Patricia Highsmith, The Blunderer * R.K. Narayan, The English Teacher * Alice Munro, Open Secrets * Brookner (again), Latecomers From P.D. James (by way of Henry James): "The purpose of a novel is to help the heart of man to know itself." Can't wait for the beach--and I'd love to hear what you plan on reading in the next few months!

When I was a little girl at home, if one of us children upset a glass at table or dropped a knife, my father's voice bellowed: "Behave yourself!" If we soaked our bread in the gravy, he cried out, "Don't lick the plates! Don't make messes and slops!" Messes and slops were things which my father could not stand, any more than he could stand modern pictures. "You people don't know how to sit at table. You are not people one could take out anywhere. You make such a mess. If you were at a hotel table in England, they would send you out immediately." He had a very exalted opinion of England, holding it to be the finest example in the world of good breeding... This is a passage from Natalia Ginzburg's "Family Lexicon." Sometimes it's called a novel, sometimes a memoir. Ginzburg was a major Italian writer; she is now enjoying a renaissance (see today's NYT), and there's speculation that her current moment in the sp...