The New York Review of Books

Rake, drunkard, aesthete, gossip, raconteur extraordinaire: the narrator of Bohumil Hrabal&'s rambling, rambunctious masterpiece Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age is all these and more. Speaking to a group of sunbathing women who remind him of lovers past, this elderly roue tells the story of his lifeor at least unburdens himself of a...

Fair Playis the type of love story that is rarely told, a revelatory depiction of contentment, hard-won and exhilarating.Mari is a writer and Jonna is an artist, and they live at opposite ends of a big apartment building, their studios connected by a long attic passageway. They have argued, worked, and laughed together for decades. Yet they've...

The Dud Avocadofollows the romantic and comedic adventures of a young American who heads overseas to conquer Paris in the late 1950s. Edith Wharton and Henry James wrote about the American girl abroad, but it was Elaine Dundy's Sally Jay Gorce who told us what she was really thinking. Charming, sexy, and hilarious,The Dud Avocadogained instant...

Age has done everything except mellow the characters in Kingsley Amis's The Old Devils, which turns its humane and ironic gaze on a group of Welsh married couples who have been spending their golden yearswhen ';all of a sudden the evening starts starting after breakfast'nattering, complaining, reminiscing, and, above all, drinking....

A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOKS ORIGINALMavis Gallant is a contemporary legend, a frequent contributor toThe New Yorkerfor close to fifty years who has, in the words ofThe New York Times, "e;radically reshaped the short story for decade after decade."e; Michael Ondaatje's new selection of Gallant's work gathers some of the most memorable...

The Archimedes is a modern merchant steamship in tip-top condition, and in the summer of 1929 it has been picking up goods along the eastern seaboard of the United States before making a run to China. A little overloaded, perhapsthe oddly assorted cargo includes piles of old newspapers and heaps of tobaccothe ship departs for the Panama Canal from...