Michael Lieberman's Blog: Mike Lieberman's take on reading and writing

Interim Report: Midway through "My Struggle," Book 2

Karl Ove Knausgaard continues to delight. A friend & fellow writer says, "Attending a poetry reading is like being in the hospital…. Full of neuroses." He then goes on to except those by Inger Christensen. Haven't we all been there?

Signing of The Women of Harvard Square at the Jung Center

Thanks to all of you who braved the weather and attended my reading/signing of my new novel last night at the Jung Center. For those of you who would like a copy and missed the signing, it's available in print and Kindle formats from Amazon:http://goo.gl/PN8q39

Here's How "The Women of Harvard Square" begins

I. Our Lady of the Bogs and Pitcher Plants

Diana was the talk of Adams House. And Agnes, like everyone else, was swept up by her mystery and beauty. Diana hung out with writers and literary types and was rumored to be working on a play. The title, House scuttle had it, was Disraeli’s Apricot Tree—which led to endless speculation. People googled “Disraeli.” The curious, meaning a large swath of the undergraduates in Adams including Agnes, had to know every last detail. The more enterprising got hold of an old British TV miniseries and watched it avidly for clues about the statesman. And everyone kept an eye out for Diana in the common rooms and the courtyard and walking along the Charles or on Plympton Street or Mass Ave. The dining hall was prime viewing. What would she be wearing? Who would be her dinner companions? Was she dating someone?
Diana had instant glamour. She was fine-boned and delicate without seeming frail. She could make the simplest top and pants look as if they had come from the most expensive boutique in Boston, and when she did walk in for dinner, she seemed to have stepped simultaneously out of the pages of Vogue and The New York Review of Books.
One night Agnes watched Diana cross the dining hall to a table where three attractive, young women sat. She carried bound copies of something—her play, Agnes surmised. A jolt of excitement surged through the voyeur—a play devoted to young women, perhaps exclusively devoted to their sensibilities, and certainly written by one with undeniable charisma. And Benjamin Disraeli? What was he doing in their company?
This was in the early spring of their junior year—Agnes remembered because the crocuses were just in bloom. Later, when the tulips were at their height, she saw a performance of Disraeli’s Apricot Tree, and her fascination turned to longing.
With Maynard it was different. Agnes was taken with him before she met him.

My New Novel: The Women of Harvard Square

My new novel The Women of Harvard Square can be ordered at Amazon (http://goo.gl/PN8q39). I'll read from it and sign copies at The Jung Center, Jan. 22nd at 5:45 pm. Pl join me and spread the word. You can also buy copies that evening or reserve them: (713) 524-8253. I'll also sign your Amazon copies there.


Of the my three novels, this one's the most fun—it sizzles.



As Gail Storey says, "In The Women of Harvard Square, we travel...into the mythos of eroticism, personified by his vivid contemporary goddesses of science, art, and vitality."


These women are smart, sassy, and sexy. There's Agnes, who with her boyfriend Maynard provides the inspiration for her best friend Diana’s new play that turns into a steamy, boundary-bending sendup. As for Agnes and Diana, don't even try to imagine their shenanigans. You'll want to meet Agnes's grandmother Abigail, who at eighty-seven is still feisty and more than a little naughty—and Adriana, her daughter and Agnes’s mother, who receives a shocking gift from her old Radcliffe roommate. That’s Olympia, the award-winning novelist, who gets the scare of her life when she decides to set her new novel in Pittsburgh and visits. Did I mention Beverly, the long, tall Texan who came to Harvard for college and never left—and never left Texas behind? Oh, and Henrietta, whose imagination is so outrageous and dark that she will soon get her own novel.

"The Women of"Harvard Square" is finally off to the printer

Good news for all of them: Agnes, Diana, Olympia, Beverly, Abigail and Henrietta. Can be preordered at Amazon (http://goo.gl/PN8q39)

A great read for women.

"The Lobsterman's Daughter" at the Great Books Book Club

Talked about "The Lobsterman's Daughter" yesterday at the Great Books Book Club at the Trotter YMCA. Wonderful conversation with a terrific group. I learn so much from my readers. Thank you! A special thanks to host Louis Wu who invited me.

John Williams' Fiction

I've just finished two of John Williams' most highly regarded books, "Augustus," which won the National Book Award twenty years ago, and "Stoner," which has captured the attention of readers largely by word of mouth. They are two entirely different novels: one the story of the man who along with Julius Caesar ended the Republic and became Rome's first emperor, and the other a tale of mister everyman, a professor of English at the University of Missouri who lived an ordinary life with integrity and authenticity. Williams is remarkable in his ability to convey the subtleties of two different lives across their arcs in a convincing, sympathetic, and non-judgmental way. "Augustus" is an epistolary novel in which Williams impersonates Julius Caesar, Cicero,and Mark Antony among others while "Stoner" is narrated by an impersonal third person. Such different ways to get at the human heart.

Galway Kinnell

Galway Kinnell died a day or so ago at 87. He was a fine poet, an inspired teacher & a generous human being. I worked with him twice at a Squaw Valley poet's workshop. His presence will be missed.

A Tribute to Dylan Thomas

Today is the 100th anniversary of his birth.

Here's a nod to Dylan Thomas,
who brought his gift so strange among us,
loved and privileged by the muse,
if only he'd laid off the booze.

John Williams on Poetry

I am reading John Williams's wonderful historical novel, "Augustus." Here's his take on poetry that he puts in the mouth of Horace in a letter to Livy: [T]he end [of a poem] that I discover at last is not the end that I conceived at first. For every solution entails new choices, and every choice made poses new problems to which solutions must be found, and so on and on....The poet is always surprised at where his poem has gone.