Lisa Genova →

Before I understood how deeply Lisa Genova’s work would shape my thinking about identity, empathy, and loss, I first encountered her through Still Alice. Published in 2007, the novel brought Alzheimer’s disease into public conversation with unusual intimacy and clarity, setting the tone for the work that followed.

Genova’s background matters here. She studied biopsychology at Bates College and later earned a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard. That scientific grounding gives her novels a precision that is rare in contemporary fiction, but it never eclipses the human story. The science is present, quietly doing its work, while the lives at the center remain fully human.

Across her novels, Genova has written about conditions that are often misunderstood or avoided, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, Huntington’s disease, autism, and traumatic brain injury. Rather than treating these diagnoses as plot devices, she writes from inside them. Her aim has always been accuracy, empathy, and visibility for people whose experiences are too often reduced to fear or abstraction.

I’ve reviewed several of her books on this site, including Every Note Played, and over time, her work has become a reference point for how fiction can educate without instructing, and illuminate without simplifying.

It’s also been gratifying to see engagement from authors whose work has appeared here. On occasion, Genova, along with writers such as Harold Bloom and Tara Westover, has acknowledged posts on this site. Those moments are small, but meaningful reminders that writing travels further than we expect.

www.lisagenova.com

See Reviews, Click on Books

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A thank you note from Lisa Genova

Will Durrant is a favorite and influencial author →

Will Durant has long interested me not simply as a historian or philosopher, but as a writer deeply concerned with the human soul—its fears, contradictions, longings, and quiet search for meaning. Across decades of writing, Durant returned again and again to the same enduring questions: how we live with mortality, how we educate ourselves beyond information, and how wisdom differs from knowledge. His work does not aim to impress with systems or abstractions, but to understand what it means to be human across time.

Quotes

“The fear of death is strangely mingled with the longing for repose.” 

"I found it impossible to continue my pretenses to orthodoxy."

Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.”

“Education is the transmission of civilization.”

“To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.”

 “Truth will make us free.” 

(This could be considered his most important work)

Fallen Leaves could be considered one of Durant’s most important works. He wrote its preface at the age of ninety-five, addressing readers who might expect a final, definitive philosophy. Instead, he offered a modest clarification:

“Please do not expect any new system of philosophy, nor any world-shaking cogitations; these will be human confessions, not divine revelations; they are micro- or mini-essays whose only dignity lies in their subjects rather than in their profundity or their size.”

Even as Durant downplays the depth of what follows, the book leaves the reader waiting—not for grand conclusions, but for recognition. The twenty-two short chapters distill more than sixty years of engagement with philosophy, religion, art, science, and history, returning repeatedly to the human condition rather than abstract theory.

His writings included thoughts about the soul.

He confirmed his love of and insight into the value of history, saying: “It is a mistake to think that the past is dead. Nothing that has ever happened is quite without influence at this moment. The present is merely the past rolled up and concentrated in this second of time. You, too, are your past; often, your face is your autobiography; you are what you are because of what you have been, because of your heredity stretching back into forgotten generations, and because of every element of the environment that has affected you, every man or woman that has met you, every book that you have read, every experience that you have had; all these are accumulated in your memory, your body, your character, your soul. So with a city, a country, and a race, it is its past and cannot be understood without it.”

“The Story of Civilization”: 11 volumes considers the living conditions of everyday people. Durant said that curious readers had challenged him to speak his mind on the timeless questions of human life and fate, having spent so much of his life focusing on just that.

Is the Human Soul Eternal, and is it transcendent of our material existence? by Brent M. Jones was inspired by Will Durrant

See article “is the human soul eternal”

Durant shaped how I think by reminding me that the study of history, philosophy, and ideas only matters insofar as it deepens our understanding of the human soul.

Toni Morrison, 'Beloved' Author and Nobel Laureate, →

Toni Morrison, 'Beloved' author and Nobel Laureate, dies at 88 - August 5th 2019

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Toni Morrison

At the age of 33, Toni Morrison found herself back at her parents' home in Ohio, jobless, divorced, and with one child and another on the way. This was a challenging time but also the beginning of a remarkable journey of resilience and determination.

Today, she is one of the most respected American writers, an editor, teacher, and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. She has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. She is known for her plays "Desdemona" and "Dreaming Emmett" and her movies "A Moment in Time,” "Conversations with Legendary Women,” and "African American Women of Achievement.”

Toni Morrison's writing style is not just about narrating African-American problems and issues, it's about vividly illustrating them.  She achieves this without sacrificing the richness of traditional language, a feat that enlightens readers about the depth of her storytelling. 

She has written many books, but three stood out: Beloved, The Bluest Eye, and Song of Solomon. Beloved showed us how black Americans repressed and denied the experience of slavery. It was inspired by a true story and is considered her most challenging book, one that some critics say they felt they experienced slavery.  

She said in her book: "In hindsight, I think what is important about it is the process by which we construct and deconstruct reality to be able to function in it.”

Morrison's perspective, as expressed in Beloved, resonates with my own. I believe in the transformative power of storytelling. When we write our life stories, we are not just recounting events but reshaping our reality. This act of storytelling empowers us to see how one event can influence another and how our perception of ourselves can evolve.

Click on titles to see these reviews *

Quotes by Toni Morrison

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”

 “At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph, paint, or even remember it. It is enough.”

 “Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.”

 “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.” 

Harlan Coben →

Harlan Coben was born on January 4, 1962. He writes mystery and thriller novels. His books pull you in quickly, and you don’t have to wait until halfway through to reach the point where you don’t want to put the book down. His skill in crafting a plot is tops.

I like his quote; only bad writers think they are good. Do you have to ask if having his 25 million dollar net worth gives him better insight?

He was born in 1962. His website is harlancoben.com, and he has 70 million books in print.

For more on this author, see his gallery https://www.harlancoben.com/gallery/.

Click on Book or Book names below to see the Review

The Boy From The Woods

Caught

Six Years

Official Harlan Coben Website

www.harlancoben.com

David Baldacci →

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David Baldacci was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia. He graduated from Henrico High School and earned a BA from Virginia Commonwealth University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law for nine years in Washington, DC. 

While practicing law, he turned to novel writing, taking three years to write Absolute Power. Published in 1996, it was an international bestseller. Baldacci has published 36 best-selling novels for adults and six books for younger readers.

One estimate of his net worth was 45 million dollars. He says that he has been writing since childhood when his mother gave him a lined notebook to write down his stories. Fan, since I read 14 of his books at this writing and reviewed them here in the Book Review section, I have asked myself why I like his books. The main reason is that they make sense and hold my attention. I have reviewed some authors that have kept my attention for twice this many books, but the last few seem like they could be better. No so with David Baldacci.

Click Titles Below to link to Reviews

Baldacci, David, Walk The Wire

Baldacci, David, The Fix

Baldacci, David, The Hit

Baldacci, David, One Summer

Baldacci, David, The Simple Truth

Baldacci, David, Total Control

Baldacci, David, Last Man Standing

Baldacci, David, No Man’s Land

Baldacci, David, Simple Genius

Baldacci, David, First Family

Baldacci, David, The Long Road to Mercy

Baldacci, David, The Winner

Baldacci, David One Good Deed

Baldacci, David Memory Man

Dean Koontz →

Dean Koontz compares Real Life & Fiction by Brent M. Jones

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In Dean Koontz's book, The Crooked Staircase, the little boy Travis is hiding out in a fortified bunker below the ground with Cornell, an "End of Times" fanatic who does not need the world above and is spending his days reading.

Cornell has just finished reading the work of philosopher Immanuel Kant. On his table is Nero Wolfe mystery, a fictional character created in 1934 by American mystery writer Rex Stout.

He mentions his interest in reading all one hundred twenty-plus books of Henry James, having found "The Turn of the Screw" very screwy. 

Cornell says he understands lying low as he mentions the Wolfe stories.  Gavin leans forward in his chair and says, "This is real life now, Cornell. Real bad people, a real threat, not a story by Dickens."

Cornell replies, "There is no meaningful difference, cousin. Plato might agree. Except he's dead. When I return to reading fiction, which I hope to do in just a minute or two, it is my real life. 

Did Koontz use this dialog to shape an eccentric character or put action novels on more par with the classics? 

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John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. →

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Steinbeck said that “to write well about something, you had to either love it or hate it very much, and that, in a sense, was a mirror of his personality.”

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The acceptance points directly to the points of criticism that many expressed. Swedish newspapers said the award was "one of the Academy's biggest mistakes.” The New York Times referred to his books as “watered down by tenth-rate philosophizing.”

Steinbeck said of writing that “to write well about something you had to either love it or hate it very much, and that in a sense was a mirror of his own personality.”

His first financial success was with the writing of Tortilla Flat in 1935. Before that he made his living as a carpenter, ranch hand, factory laborer, sales clerk, caretaker and reporter, and was also given financial assistance by his father in the hope that he would develop his craft.

See Reviews

Is C.S. Lewis a Literary Influence →

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Is C.S. Lewis a Literary Influence? Is having a legacy the same as having a Literary Influence?

Lewis does indeed have a legacy. He is best known for his writings in the area of fantasy, especially his sci-fi trilogy and religion.

His fantasy works still have power over 50 years since his death. For example, the Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe resonate with many and still endures. Lewis’s writings about his conversion to Christianity and thoughts about Christianity are prolific and have had a strong influence.

According to Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lewis is not considered an academic theologian  but "in what you might call pastoral theology: as an interpreter of people's moral and spiritual crises; as somebody who is a brilliant diagnostician of self-deception."

Whether the Archbishop is correct in his opinion, much of Lewis’s writing does have broad appeal. “The Screwtape Letters” may be the best example, where his wise inquiry into temptation is cast as a series of witty letters between a demon and his apprentice.

“Mere Christianity” is a book that might confirm the Archbishop’s view, but then it was based on a series of BBC radio talks Lewis gave during the second world war, and it may not be fair to judge his writings on Christianity based on it.

Lewis didn’t have a lot of good things to say about poets, and some say that this is because he had not succeeded as a poet.

Other areas of focus were as a children's writer, novelist, memoirist, essayist, critic, broadcaster, and apologist. So yes, C.S. Lewis had an enormous literary influence. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University and Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University. He wrote more than thirty books: just the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.

Click on the Covers Below to see Reviews.

In 1962 The Christian Century magazine published C.S. Lewis’s answer to the question, “What books did most to shape your vocational latitude and your philosophy of life?” Here is is list.

  1. Phantastes by George MacDonald 2. The Everlasting Man by G.K. Chesterton. 3. The aeneid by Virgil 4. The Temple by George Herbert 5 The Prelude by William Wordsworth, 6. The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto 7. The onsolation of Philosophy by Boethius, 8. Life of Samuel JoHnson by James Boswell 9 Descent into Hell by Charles Williams 10 Theism and Humanism by Arthur Jamers Balfour

 

Louis L'Amour →

Louis L'Amour said, "I think of myself in the oral tradition as a troubadour, a village tale-teller, the man in the shadows of the campfire. That's the way I'd like to be remembered- as a storyteller. A good storyteller."

When L'Amour died, he had sold over 200 million books, which is now well over 300 million. To ask what his influence was is redundant, considering these staggering sales. People liked him.

Critics said of his travels after he left home at 15 and his comments about all that he saw, especially all that he read during that time, as just L'Amour taking a license to talk about whatever he wanted. This is pretty sad.

The book that tells us about L'Amour is "The Education of a Wandering Man" For me reading was a turning point in seeing L'Amour's real depth and becoming a fan.  It also brought back much of what I had loved about reading and re-started my reading obsession.

Almost all of the other successful Western Writers say they were influenced by L'Amour in one way or another and had to consider him as they developed their place in that genre.  His plot approach and mastery of his genre are masterful.

L'Amour did more for the Western category as a distinct form of composition that brings its unique place in the whole body of literature than any other author. 

Click below to link to Reviews.

"The Education of a Wandering Man."

"The Empty Land"

See L'Amour's Poem "I'm A Stranger Here" Reviewed

"Smoke From This Altar"

See Review of Hondo

See Review of Down The Long Hills

Mustang Man

Yondering

Professor Harold Bloom →

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Professor Harold Bloom:  July 11, 1930 -October 14, 2019

He was likely, no, he must have been, the most knowledgeable Shakespeare Scholar on the planet.

(See Shakespeare’s Literary Favorite Click Here) 

An American literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities and English at Yale University. He wrote more than forty books, including twenty books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and a novel.  

Bloom considered Shakespeare the ultimate center of the Western canon and even said he was only a parody of Falstaff.” (See Falstaff Review Click Here) The pictures used to portray Falstaff do seem to resemble Bloom.  

Bloom's theory was that people tend ultimately to be either more Hamlet (see Hamlet review Click Here), “an abyss, a chaos of virtual nothingness,” or Falstaff, overflowing with vitality and endless laughter, for whom “the self is everything. “

His book "Shakespeare The Invention of the Human" (see review click here) says that Shakespeare's vocabulary of 22,000 words is so infinite that it proves he knew pretty much everything there is to tell about humankind. That he, therefore, “invented the human.”

In an interview published in 1995, Bloom reflected on the great authors of the Western world, stating: "We have to read Shakespeare, and we have to study Shakespeare. We have to study Dante. We have to read Chaucer. We have to read Cervantes. We have to read the Bible, at least the King James Bible. We have to read certain authors.… They provide an intellectual; I dare say, the spiritual value that has nothing to do with organized religion or the history of institutional belief. They remind us in every sense of reminding us. They do not only tell us things that we have forgotten, but they tell us things we couldn’t possibly know without them, and they reform our minds. They make our minds stronger. They make us more vital."

Click Book to See Review

Bloom Categories Include

20th & 21st Century Educators, 20th & 21st Century American Writers, American Literary Critics, New York University Faculty, Yale Sterling Professor, Shakespearean Scholars, Yale University Faculty, Jewish Scholars, Jewish American Academics, Critics of Postmodernism,



How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom

In How to Read and Why Harold Bloom sets out a list of books that he believes can instill in one a life-long love of aesthetically and intellectually great literature. 

 

Shakespeare: Poet, Writer, Actor, and Dramatist →


William Shakespeare (1564–1616) was an English poet, playwright, and actor whose influence on the English language and on storytelling is unmatched. He’s often called the greatest writer in the English language, and it’s hard to argue with that. Few authors have shaped a language the way Shakespeare shaped ours. His command of diction—his instinct for the exact word—expanded English in a way no one else has. Scholars estimate he used more than 20,000 words across his works and coined roughly 1,700 of them.

For anyone who cares about writing, Shakespeare becomes more than a historical figure; he’s a reminder of what language can do when imagination and precision meet. His impact reaches into every corner of literature. Many writers influence other writers. Shakespeare influenced the language itself. That’s a different level of legacy.

The New York Times, quoting Harold Bloom, once wrote that “after 400 years, Shakespeare’s genius is alive and well.” Bloom took that further, calling The Complete Works of William Shakespeare a kind of “secular scripture” — a source we draw from when we talk about human nature, emotion, psychology, and even myth. Bloom, a longtime Yale professor and one of Shakespeare’s most dedicated interpreters, is almost impossible to avoid when discussing Shakespeare’s reach and relevance.

Samuel Johnson said, “The essence of poetry is invention,” and invention is where Shakespeare excelled. Bloom used that idea to title his own book Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, arguing that Shakespeare didn’t just create stories — he created characters with such depth, contradiction, and inner life that they felt unprecedented. They weren’t just believable; they were revelatory.

Good authors often say they discover their characters first, that the story reveals itself once they learn who those characters are. Shakespeare’s characters don’t just reveal plots — they reveal themselves in layers. They surprise, they shift, they grow. Falstaff and Hamlet, Bloom said, were “free artists of themselves,” constantly reshaping who they were through their choices. Shakespeare’s gift wasn’t just language; it was the way he used diction to open a window into the human mind.

Four centuries later, we still turn to Shakespeare because he understood people. And when language and insight come together at that level, they don’t fade. They stay.

Quotes

 “Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”

“With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.” 

“With mirth and laughter, let old wrinkles come.” 

“Et Tu, Brute?” 

“Wise “All's well that ends well.” 

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.”


My Tweet to Harold Bloom about Shakespeare

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