If you’ve ever worked in an office, of any kind, you will understand. Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris, is a novel about minutiae. More specifically, it’s a novel about the tiny interactions, the small moments, the silly preoccupations that get us through the day and eventually, in this case, string together to form the collective experience of a group of corporate advertising colleagues in the era of the ever-eroding bottom line. Deftly guided by a collective narrator, you, the reader, become part of the “we,” and you slowly realize that these characters are the people you live your life with. You see them more than your family, spend more time gossiping with and about them than your friends. This is the culture of the modern office, and Ferris has captured its many dimensions–the secrets, the fears, the denials, the Post-its–in a book of tremendous wit, absurdity, and surprisingly, feeling. As he presents to you one grain of sand at a time, I promise you will turn around at the end of the book and realize you’re standing on a beach. Or, very possibly, in your office.

It’s New York. 1950. Against the odds, you’ve managed to kick the habit and now you’re clean, trying to make an honest dollar as a smalltime thief. You don’t visit the junkies’ dens in the Bowery no more–you’re keeping your nose clean, more or less. So when you get a P.I. gig that drags you back down into your dirty past, you know you oughtta say no. But it’s hard to turn down all that cash…a lady’s gotta make a buck somehow…

Sara Gran’s Dope drops you into the seedy New York underworld of the 50’s and won’t let you escape. But don’t worry, you won’t want to. You see, Josephine Flannigan, ex-junkie anti-heroine extraordinaire, has a missing girl to find. Every corner she turns takes Josephine deeper into the mystery and into her own ugly past. And it’s hard to know who to trust…

Sara Gran breathes gritty life back into the noir genre, and nobody’s done it better. So pick up the book, but be prepared; you might get your fingers dirty.

I’m not much for resolutions myself, but I’m making an exception. In 2008, I’m going to read more books by Jonathan Tropper. The Book of Joe, Tropper’s fictional tale of an author returning to the small town he villified in a bestselling novel, is one of the most satisfying reads I’ve had in months. (I didn’t notice the hours ticking by while I was stranded in an airport. What does that tell you?)

Joe Goffman never intended to return to Bush Falls, the small Connecticut town where he suffered through high school as a non-athlete while the basketball team ruled the world. But the father who never seemed proud of him now lies in a coma, and Joe has returned to do his filial duty. His bestselling novel, Bush Falls, is a hit movie, he’s rich and not without abundant female company, and oh yeah, everybody in Bush Falls hates him. Really hates him. Some people actually want him dead. Joe is surprised to discover the potency of the town’s fury and the depth of his unfinished business there. And somehow, once he’s there, he can’t seem to leave…

Joe is the part of you that promised in high school you’d stick it to everyone who never understood you, by growing up to be rich and famous. Except he actually did it, and now he’s got to figure out what else drives him. He’s got to figure out why he’s still lonely, still a little bit lost, and still longing for the people he left behind. Tropper’s deft and perfect metaphors (the car–just wait!) and his finely drawn, very human characters will make you ache. In a good way. As for Joe himself, I turned the last page and missed him immediately.

You know that silly game where you’re asked to choose three literary characters you’d like to chat with over dinner? No? Fine, I’m the only nerd. But I bring it up because if we were playing that game right now, I’d invite sportswriter/realtor/struggling husband and father Frank Bascombe, the narrator of three delicious and harrowing novels by Richard Ford.

The Lay of the Land is Ford’s extraordinary follow-up to The Sportswriter and Independence Day, and like the rest of us, Frank Bascombe has been surfing the ups and downs of a human lifetime with mixed results. Now 55, he’s contemplating a stage of life he refers to as “the Permanent Period,” a time when you’re through becoming and are resigned to simply being. He’s juggling wives present and former, grown children for whom he could use operating instructions, a Tibetan business partner exploring the wonders of capitalism, and that universal trial, a family Thanksgiving. Rarely are we given a chance, as readers, to experience so fully the inner life of another human being, and to feel so familiar and so foreign at the same time. Spend three days with Frank and you might begin to wonder if you’re living a novel and not just reading one.

The funny thing is, if I did invite Frank to dinner, he probably wouldn’t understand why.

You want to know about British author Matt Haig. For a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he’s written THE DEAD FATHERS CLUB, a brilliant novel in which an eleven-year-old boy finds out what it might be like to be Hamlet, if Hamlet were an eleven-year-old boy in modern day England whose family owns a pub. If you’re familiar with the play, you’ll be delighted at the way Haig toys with it, and if you’re not, you’ll be too enthralled with boy narrator Philip Noble to worry about it.

Best of all, when you turn the last page and wish there were more, you can trot to the bookstore and pick up Haig’s first novel, pine for the one he’s just completed, or marvel that somewhere in between he’s also written one for kids.

So when are you gonna pick up the book? That is the question.

First things first: I want to take a moment to say a big thank-you to all those who have written in with their reactions to RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES. It is just super-terrifically great to know that this book means something to you.

And I owe additional thanks to all those who are recommending it to friends and family. There is truly no better way for a book to find its readers; you wouldn’t believe the difference you make in passing the word along.

To that end, I think I have an opportunity here to help get out the buzz on other great books. In the coming weeks, look out here for my picks: reads I’d recommend for all those beaches, porches and patios you’re lounging on this summer.

And thanks again…

Okay, so…this is embarrassing.

I spent four years studying theatre at a university that I selected specifically for its excellent theatre program. I worked as an actor for some five years. I wrote a book about a playwright–in the first person–and then what did I do?

I MISQUOTED SHAKESPEARE.

In RIGHT BEFORE YOUR EYES, which is on shelves and available for all to see, I misquoted William Shakespeare. And not some obscure quote that no one but the foremost dramatic scholars would recognize, no, I misquoted one of the most famous lines in the canon. This is a move worthy of Liza Weiler.

Just to be clear, whether you’ve already caught my gaffe or not, I make a reference on p. 161 to a quote from Act V, Scene 1 of Macbeth. Liza is getting ready for bed and Dr. Tim notices the dress she was wearing when she kissed George at the New Year’s party hanging on the back of her door. He asks about it and a guilt-ridden Liza brushes him off. It reads like this:

“”Oh, no, I just picked it up from the dry cleaner’s.” All the perfumes of India, etc.”

Liza is referencing the famous “Out, damned spot!” scene, in which Lady MacB also utters the line:

“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.”

I said India. I meant Arabia. And the thing is, I know better. I know the line. I did the scene in college acting classes, and I know the difference between India and Arabia. So I apologize heartily to all of you for bastardizing it in the first place, and for not catching it during any of the innumerable times I read the book while revising. It’s a lame, dumb mistake.

I suppose there had to be at least one line that I would always wish I could go back to and edit. And if you think about it, there’s some irony here. In the theatre, there’s great superstition surrounding “The Scottish Play.” We don’t speak the play’s name within the walls of a theatre, except during performance, for fear that its supposed curse will wreak havoc. So isn’t it only appropriate that a former actor screwed herself trying to quote the play in a book? And Lady Macbeth is agonizing over a choice she can’t unmake, a judgement call that will haunt her. Frankly I’ll take my mistake over hers any day, but it’ll haunt me just a little.

Sincere thanks to the very wise gentleman who pointed out my error in the gentlest way possible. And I hope Bill will forgive me. I’m pretty sure it happens to him all the time…

Stop what you’re doing. Stop it right now. Go to the bookstore and purchase Katherine Taylor’s debut novel, RULES FOR SAYING GOODBYE.

This is a beautiful, funny, sharp and effortlessly affecting novel, and the greatest compliment I can pay it is to tell you that it sat on my coffee table for three days with fifteen pages left to be read, because I simply could not bear for it to end. You will want to luxuriate in Katherine Taylor’s stark, satin society long after you’ve turned the last page.

And then you’ll long for her next book…

May 19, 2007
3:00pm—Second Story Book Shop, reading and Q&A to follow.
75 North Greeley Avenue, Chappaqua, NY.

Just in case you’re too nervous to watch the Idol results show, I’ll be reading from Right Before Your Eyes on Wednesday evening, May 16th, at 7:30pm at Barnes & Noble in Park Slope, Brooklyn…wait a minute, that’s tonight!!

Now go pick out an outfit!