Welcome to my new website! I’ve put together a selection of my recent articles and posted them here: on Toni Morrison and Michael Chabon, A.S. Byatt and Patti Smith, the art of the love letter, the Lost Continent of Mu, a Turkish writer in Amsterdam, and “Mrs. Dalloway” in the 21st century. Taken together they describe seven years of reading pleasure—with only an occasional twinge of pain.

For the past several years, I’ve been writing about books for the Amsterdam daily paper Trouw. All that work has appeared in Dutch, thanks to my translator (and partner) Jan van Houten. It’s been a very happy arrangement for me, and one that has allowed me to deepen my thoughts about belonging and difference, and about writing and reading across cultures. Now I’ve set up this site to make my reviews available in English as well.

I’m currently hard at work on my next book and doing very little reviewing, but I’ll try to post news and updates when I can.

I’m very grateful to Hans Scholten, who designed the site and put it online. Thanks also to David and Kristen Chick, who built my original Tiptree website and helped with this one; to the artist Isabella Werkhoven; who generously allowed me to use a detail from one of her paintings; and to Jan, who took the pictures of me.