modern love essays book

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audiobook (Unabridged) ∣ True Stories of Love, Loss, and Redemption

By daniel jones.

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Daniel Jones

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03 September 2019

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• Meet The Team

7 “Modern Love” Essays You Need to Read

The beloved New York Times column, “Modern Love,” has been publishing weekly essays for 15 years. The personal writings deal with heartbreak, revelations and feelings…all in 1,800 words or less. It’s grown into a book, a podcast and, most recently, a TV show. 

Love can take place between significant others, friends, family, pets, or even one’s own self, which the column tries to emphasize. So, this Valentine’s Day, treat yourself to reading about someone else’s love. Here are our picks for seven “must read” entries:

It’s a tale about a drawn-out break-up and the fall out that resulted. For anyone who feels as though the hurt might never end after a devastating goodbye, this is the one for you. 

“I’m not sure if we fall in love with people or if we fall in love with the way they make us feel, the ways they expand who we are and wish to be.” ​

A story within a story within a story, this is all about missed loves and connections rekindled after years. It’s equally heartbreaking and warming – perfect for complicated Valentine’s feels. 

“I found him by accident, doing research on theater companies for my last novel. There he was above his too-common name. I composed the email: ‘Are you the same man who stood me up in Paris?’” ​

Take caution: you’ll need a box of tissues for this one. Sometimes the things we love are forever tainted by a traumatic situation. How we move on is an ever-evolving journey. 

“It is difficult to hide from the Beatles. After all these years they are still regularly in the news. Their songs play on oldies stations, countdowns, and best-ofs…but hide from the Beatles I must.” ​

Not often are love stories about elderly couples told. In this gorgeously written piece, two people find a love to end their lives with and compare it to the loves they’ve had before. 

“Old love is different. In our 70s and 80s, we had been through enough of life’s ups and downs to know who we were, and we had learned to compromise. We knew something about death because we had seen loved ones die. The finish line was drawing closer. Why not have one last blossoming of the heart?”

In one of the most shared ML columns ever, a wife searches for new ways to deal with the human flaws that appear throughout a marriage. It’s a sweet, hilarious look at how we can learn to co-exist, while also checking our own shortcomings. 

“After two years of exotic animal training, my marriage is far smoother, my husband much easier to love.” ​

What does it mean to have a relationship without a label? Does the concept lend itself to more heartbreak than we might be admitting? This is the essay for all of us broken-hearted over someone we never actually dated. 

“We aren’t supposed to want anything serious; not now, anyway. But a void is created when we refrain from telling it like it is, from allowing ourselves to feel how we feel. And in that unoccupied space, we’re dangerously free to create our own realities.”

Finally, the essay that made us cry for days. The writer is penning a letter to her husband’s future love, as she is dying from terminal cancer. It’s a touching and unbearably sweet tribute to a love that lasts – in life and in death. Bonus, a year after the author’s death, her husband wrote the followup, “My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me.”

“I need to say this (and say it right) while I have a) your attention, and b) a pulse. I have been married to the most extraordinary man for 26 years. I was planning on at least another 26 together.”

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As a self-professed mega-fan of rom-com novels and films, I was thrilled when Amazon announced their upcoming Modern Love TV series , based on the long-running New York Times Modern Love column . Premiering on Oct. 18, the series boasts a star-studded cast (Anne Hathaway, Tina Fey, Dev Patel and Andrew Scott are just four of the show's featured actors) and will feature eight anthology-style episodes about love in all of its many forms — romantic, familial, platonic, sexual, and for oneself. Whether you're a long-time reader of Modern Love or are just discovering the column, now is the perfect time to catch up on some of the greatest essays before the show premieres.

In the revised and updated version of the Modern Love book (first published in 2007) editor Daniel Jones compiled 42 of the columns best essays. In his introduction to the book, Jones writes:

"I suppose if we are going to try to define what a love story is, we should begin by defining what love is, but that can be even more slippery. Our definitions of love, too, tend toward the flowery treatment. From where I sit, however -- as someone who has read, skimmed, or otherwise digested some one hundred thousand love stories over the past fifteen years -- love, at its best, is more of a wheelbarrow than a rose: gritty, and messy but also durable. Yet still hard to put into words."

Below are seven of my favorite of the 42 essays that appear in the Modern Love book, a great refresher for seasoned readers and a perfect precursor to the series for new fans, too:

'You Might Want to Marry My Husband' by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

In this March 2017 column (published just 10 days before she died of ovarian cancer at age 51) author Amy Krouse Rosenthal wrote a moving letter to her husband, Jason Rosenthal, in the hopes of finding him a new partner:

"Here is the kind of man Jason is: He showed up at our first pregnancy ultrasound with flowers. This is a man, who, because he is always up early, surprises me every Sunday morning by making some kind of oddball smiley face out of items near the coffee pot: a spoon, a mug, a banana. This is a main who emerges from the minimart or gas station and says, 'Give me your palm.' And voila, a colorful gum ball appears. (He knows I love all the flavors but white.) My guess is you know enough about him now. So let's swipe right."

Read "You Might Want To Marry My Husband."

'The Race Grows Sweeter Near Its Final Lap' by Eve Pell

Although Eve Pell's Jan. 2013 essay has not been officially confirmed as part of the Modern Love series, clues from the trailer highly suggest its inclusion. In it, Pell wrote of her late-in-life marriage to a Japanese American widower named Sam:

"Old love is different. In our 70s and 80s, we had been through enough of life’s ups and downs to know who we were, and we had learned to compromise. We knew something about death because we had seen loved ones die. The finish line was drawing closer. Why not have one last blossoming of the heart?"

Read "The Race Grows Sweeter In Its Final Lap."

'When Eve and Eve Bit the Apple' by Kristen Scharold

In this Nov. 2016 essay, writer Kristen Scharold wrote about coming out as queer and leaving her Evangelical church when she meets and falls in love with a woman named Jess:

"I felt my cramped religious framework of false dichotomies and moral starkness beginning to collapse. What once seemed like a bleak choice between losing my soul or losing my most cherished friend was in fact a lesson that true love is the only thing that could save me."

Read "When Eve and Eve Bit The Apple."

'When the Doorman is Your Main Man' by Julie Margaret Hogben

Hogben's Oct. 2015 essay (also seemingly included in the Modern Love series trailer) focused on the unique friendship she shares with her doorman, Guzim, and how his support helped her embark on the journey of single motherhood with courage:

"I became fodder for gossip: Who was the father? Did I dump him, or did he dump me? Valid questions, sometimes asked to my face, sometimes not. But down in the lobby, Guzim was there with no dog in the race. I wasn’t his daughter, sister or ex. I wasn’t his employee or boss. Our social circles didn’t overlap. Six days a week, he stood downstairs, detached but also caring enough to be the perfect friend, neither worried nor pitying."

Read "When The Doorman Is Your Main Man."

'Rallying to Keep the Game Alive' by Ann Leary

Leary's Sept. 2013 essay about the almost-end and subsequent reunification of her marriage to actor Denis Leary is a moving look at a modern marriage (and another essay that, though currently unconfirmed, also seems to be included in the Modern Love trailer.) She wrote:

"When we met, I was 20, he 25. We were too young and inexperienced to know that people don’t change who they are, only how they play and work with others. Our basic problem was, and is, that we are almost identical — in looks, attitudes and psychological makeup. Two Leos who love children and animals, and are intensely emotional and highly sensitive and competitive with everybody, but especially with each other."

Read "Rallying To Keep The Game Alive."

'Now I Need a Place to Hide Away' by Ann Hood

In her Feb. 2017 column, author Ann Hood wrote about The Beatles fandom she shared with her young daughter, Grace, who died suddenly of complications from a virulent form of strep when she was just five years old:

"It is difficult to hide from the Beatles. After all these years they are still regularly in the news. Their songs play on oldies stations, countdowns and best-ofs. There is always some Beatles anniversary: the first No. 1 song, the first time in the United States, a birthday, an anniversary, a milestone, a Broadway show. But hide from the Beatles I must. Or, in some cases, escape."

Read "Now I Need A Place To Hide Away."

'Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am' by Terri Cheney

Terri Cheney's Jan. 2008 essay, which has been confirmed as the inspiration behind the episode of the Modern Love series starring Anne Hathaway, is about the author's experience with rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and how it affected her dating life. Cheney wrote:

"In love there’s no hiding: You have to let someone know who you are, but I didn’t have a clue who I was from one moment to the next. When dating me, you might go to bed with Madame Bovary and wake up with Hester Prynne. Worst of all, my manic, charming self was constantly putting me into situations that my down self couldn’t handle."

Read "Take Me As I Am, Whoever I Am."

This article was originally published on Sep. 12, 2019

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First Lines of Rejected “Modern Love” Essays

Modern Love is a weekly column, a book, a podcast—and now, in its 16th year, a television show—about relationships, feelings, betrayals and revelations. — The Times.

My husband and I don’t text, we don’t talk, we don’t live together, I don’t know where he lives (I have my guesses), and we’ve never been more in modern love.

The vows wrote themselves, pouring from my ballpoint pen like milk being poured from a gallon of milk.

At the top of Machu Picchu, as the woman I would one day call my wife vomited up the engagement ring I’d hidden in her Nalgene, I caught a glimpse of God’s plan.

I asked Sally to watch “When Harry Met Sally” with me on our third date. My name isn’t Harry—it’s Henry—but it would have been very cool if it were Harry.

It felt right when I swiped right, but when he left I wished that I had swiped in the other direction (left).

The charcuterie board was covered with meats, cheeses, and a dog-eared letter from my late great-grandfather.

First, he stole my identity. Then he stole my heart.

In this “Modern Love” essay, I will argue that, although my ex cheated on me with my best friend, I share blame for the demise of our relationship, insofar as I could not successfully articulate my emotional wants, needs, and feelings in a concise, productive way during the relationship.

When I met Sally, I asked if she’d seen “When Harry Met Sally.” She had. I hadn’t. My name is Brian.

“What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me,” Haddaway sang over the hospital loudspeakers as a baby named Haddaway hurt me during a scheduled C-section.

I’m Christian. My husband is Jewish. We’re getting a Buddhist divorce.

Of all the Etsy shops in all the towns in all the world, she bought used baby shoes from mine.

I called No. 54 at the D.M.V. where I work. The next day, No. 54 called my number.

Men always ask me to watch “When Harry Met Sally” because my name is Sally, but they’re never named Harry, so they’re not as clever as they think.

Everything on my wedding day was picture perfect—it’s how I knew that something was horribly wrong.

Love is like a box of chocolates, in that I like both of those things.

In rural Alabama, where coyotes holler and jug bands play, “I love you”s are rarer than routine medical care.

The dick pic looked familiar, as if I’d seen it in a dream; then it dawned on me that it was a picture of my own penis.

When you realize you don’t want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible, Sally.

I didn’t know love until I gave birth and fell in modern love with the obstetrician. ♦

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Modern Love: True and Extraordinary Tales of Desire, Deceit, and Devotion Paperback – January 23, 2007

50 Irresistible True Accounts of Love in the Twenty-first Century.

A young woman wryly describes a relationship that races from start to finish almost entirely via text messages.

A Casanova is jilted after an idyllic three weeks and learns the hard way that the woman is, well, just not that into him.

An overweight woman in a sexless marriage wrestles with the rules of desire.

A young man recounts the high-wire act of sharing the woman he loves with both her husband and another boyfriend.

A female sergeant in the Missouri National Guard, fresh from Iraq, tells what she is not supposed to tell about the woman she is not allowed to love.

These are just a few of the people whose stories are included in Modern Love, a collection of the fifty most revealing, funny, stirring essays from the New York Times’s popular “Modern Love” column. Editor Daniel Jones has arranged these tales to capture the ebb and flow of relationships, from seeking love and tying the knot to having children and finding love that endures. (Cynics and melancholics can skip right to the section on splitting up.) Taken together, these essays show through a modern lens how love drives, haunts, and enriches us.

For anyone who’s loved, lost, stalked an ex, or made a lasting connection, and for the voyeur in all of us, Modern Love is the perfect match.

• Print length 400 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Broadway Books
• Publication date January 23, 2007
• Dimensions 5.5 x 1 x 7.75 inches
• ISBN-10 0307351041
• ISBN-13 978-0307351043
• See all details

Editorial Reviews

About the author, excerpt. © reprinted by permission. all rights reserved., product details.

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Broadway Books; Edition Unstated (January 23, 2007)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0307351041
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0307351043
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 7.75 inches
• #2,451 in Essays (Books)
• #3,455 in Love & Romance (Books)
• #7,773 in Short Stories Anthologies

About the authors

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Daniel Jones

Daniel Jones has edited the Modern Love column in The New York Times since its launch in 2004. His books include “Love Illuminated: Exploring Life's Most Mystifying Subject with the Help of 50,000 Strangers,” “The Bastard on the Couch: 27 Men Try Really Hard to Explore Their Feelings About Love, Loss, Freedom, and Fatherhood,” and a novel, “After Lucy,” which was a finalist for the Barnes & Noble Discover Award. His new book, "Modern Love," is an anthology of many of the best Modern Love columns from the past 15 years. Jones appears weekly on the Modern Love podcast and is consulting producer for Amazon Studios’ show “Modern Love.” He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and in New York City.

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Customers find the writing style well-written, but not very interesting. They also appreciate the great stories.

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"...to the ones I've been reading recently in the Modern Love column: well written but not very interesting...." Read more

"...As one would expect from the New York Times, the writing is superb ." Read more

"...The stories were well written/told , but the book all together failed to elicit lasting emotion...." Read more

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Customers find the stories in the book great and engaging.

"...This book was well worth it for the really great stories , most of which are far better than anything I've read lately in the column." Read more

"...The short stories are perfect if you just want a quick getaway but not ready to dive into a long novel." Read more

"Fantastic reading! A wide array of personal stories , from the heartbreaking to the hilarious...." Read more

" Really interesting but well written blog style book. Loved the expressions and honest writings of many great bloggers and their stories" Read more

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“A Gentleman in Moscow” by Amor Towles

There’s an older gentleman I see every summer at the beach. With his striking white hair and serious tan, clad only in swim shorts, he walks up and down our local six-mile beach, reading. Every time I see him, he’s reading—reading and walking, walking and reading. One day, I saw him reading the New York Times best-seller A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. I had already heard good things about it, but I wanted his opinion since I knew from previous conversations that we had a mutual appreciation for thoughtful literature. He said he was enjoying it and that his wife’s book club had claimed it was probably the best book they had ever read.

After my mother shipped out the family copy to me, I couldn’t wait to start reading it. My first thought was that this was going to be a rather comical book. The opening transcription of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov’s 1922 trial before the Soviet “Emergency Committee of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs” was clever, humorous, and certainly piqued my interest. When Prosecutor Comrade A. Y. Vyshinsky inquires about his occupation, Rostov answers, “It is not the business of gentlemen to have occupations.” When Comrade Vyshinsky asks how Rostov spends his time, the Count responds, “Dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting. The usual rigmarole” (4). After further dialogue, Comrade Ignatov chimes in to say how surprised he is that the alleged “author of the poem in question could have become a man so obviously without purpose.” To that, Rostov says, “I have lived under the impression that a man’s purpose is known only to God” (5).

After a brief recess, Ignatov delivers the committee’s verdict. Concluding that Rostov had “succumbed irrevocably to the corruptions of his class—and now poses a threat to the very ideals he once espoused,” they were inclined to put him “against the wall” (5). But since this 1913 poem ( Where Is It Now? ) was considered to be the work of a hero of the “prerevolutionary cause,” they were instead putting him under house arrest—or in this case, hotel arrest. As he had been staying at the elegant Hotel Metropol in Moscow (specifically, suite 317), he would remain there (though no longer in that nice suite). “But make no mistake,” Ignatov warns him, “should you ever set foot outside of the Metropol again, you will be shot” (6).

There you pretty much have the entire plot of A Gentleman in Moscow .

Like my distinguished fellow reader walking up and down the long stretch of beach, reading, chatting, and getting ever tanner, so Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov (a “Former Person of Interest”) spends his days in the Hotel Metropol “dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting. The usual rigmarole.” Although there are some charming scenes, I soon began to wonder if in addition to a “man’s purpose [being] known only to God,” the purpose of this novel was known only to the author! This is not a short book, and I wondered if I should continue to linger in this hotel, where not much was happening apart from “the usual rigmarole” for the Count. I decided to persevere, however, trusting the others who praised it—including the critics and the fact that it was on the New York Times best-seller list. When my resolve further waned, a coworker told me how much he loved it, and he strongly encouraged me to stick with the Count and the Hotel Metropol. My final encouragement to read to the end came, however, when I heard that Kenneth Branagh was directing and starring in a television series based on the book. Being a serious Branagh fan, I was now intrigued. If this genius of cinema and all things Shakespearean liked it, then there must be something to it!

Just like the book, this review may seem to be slowly going nowhere in particular. Now that you’ve read this far, however, I will confess that by the time I arrived at the final page of this novel, I was glad I had indeed persevered. It had been more subtle than I had sensed while reading it (and I consider myself a careful reader). But now looking back on the storyline, I think I “get” it.

Since the book jacket copy says it so well, I’ll quote the hardworking marketing folks at Viking:

An indomitable man of erudition and wit, Rostov must live in an attic room while some of the most tumultuous decades in Russian history are unfolding outside the hotel’s doors.

This was one of the truly fascinating aspects of the story for me. The Hotel Metropol was situated near the Kremlin; and during his imprisonment in the hotel, Rostov survives the rule of Stalin and then Khrushchev. While the hotel grows a bit worn over the years, it still draws top Soviet officials and foreign (including American) visitors. As Rostov wanders the corridors of his old luxury hotel, growing older himself, his friends begin disappearing into Siberia. At one point, his life-long friend Mishka visits him at the hotel after sneaking into the restaurant kitchen.

“Who would have imagined,” he said, “when you were sentenced to life in the Metropol all those years ago, that you had just become the luckiest man in all of Russia.” (292)

Although under arrest, the Count had indeed been safe within these hotel walls during the “tumultuous decades.”

One remarkable friendship that develops over the years (which apparently is another reason for the Count’s protection from outside forces) is between Rostov and a Soviet official (and former Red Army colonel), Osip Ivanovich Glebnikov. Having lived life only as a gruff soldier, Osip seeks out the Count to learn the ways of a gentleman, now that he is a Soviet dignitary among Europeans and Americans. Osip particularly wants to understand Americans, and so he and the Count begin watching American films (after a failed attempt at reading de Tocqueville). Osip especially likes Humphrey Bogart, considering him to be a “Man of Intent” (295).

One of the films they watch together is the 1937 Marx Brothers’ A Day at the Races . It is here that we find some insight into Osip’s Communist perspective regarding American culture—and his genuine concern:

“Just look at their Depression,” he said. “From beginning to end it lasted ten years. An entire decade in which the Proletariat was left to fend for itself. . . . If ever there had been a time for the American worker to cast off the yoke, surely that was it. But did they join their brothers-in-arms? Did they shoulder their axes and splinter the doors of the mansions? Not even for an afternoon. Instead, they shuffled off to the nearest movie house, where the latest fantasy was dangled before them like a pocket watch at the end of a chain.” (293)

Unfortunately, we don’t have enough space here to delve into the ensuing conversations between Osip and his friend Alexander regarding American movies (and a different, more positive interpretation of them by an American later in the book). Suffice it to say that Osip is scandalized by what he sees and claims that “Hollywood is the single most dangerous force in the history of class struggle” (294). It has no positive influence on the suffering masses and works only as a narcotic to numb them. “How did this happen, Alexander?” Osip asks. “Why do they allow these movies to be made? Do they not realize they are hammering a wedge beneath their own foundation stones?” (294).

The years pass and Rostov becomes intrigued with the 1942 Bogart/Bergman classic film Casablanca . Apart from the interesting discussions about “individualism” versus “the common good” (298), it was only when I reached this part near the end that I suddenly realized the important role of Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov, especially as Headwaiter for the acclaimed Boyarksy Restaurant in the Hotel Metropol. Close to the conclusion (I suppose you could call this a plot spoiler, though I am leaving out all the exciting events of the climax, so proceed at your own discretion!), the Count says to his friend Viktor Stepanovich regarding Casablanca , “Ah. You must see it one day” (453). When Viktor finally gets this chance, he remembers what the Count said to him and concentrates on the film:

As Rick [Bogart] began making his way through the disconcerted crowd toward the piano player [Sam], something caught Viktor’s eye. Just the slightest detail, not more than a few frames of film: In the midst of this short journey, as Rick passes a customer’s table, without breaking stride or interrupting his assurances to the crowd, he sets upright a cocktail glass that had been knocked over during the skirmish.

Yes, thought Viktor, that’s it, exactly.

For here was Casablanca, a far-flung outpost in a time of war. And here at the heart of the city, right under the sweep of the searchlights, was Rick’s Café Américain, where the beleaguered could assemble for the moment to gamble and drink and listen to music; to conspire, console, and most importantly, hope. And at the center of this oasis was Rick. . . . In setting upright the cocktail glass in the aftermath of the commotion, didn’t he also exhibit an essential faith that by the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world? (458–59)

I then realized how life had still happened—and quite fully—to a “Former Person of Interest” forced to remain inside a hotel for decades. But it’s not so much that life happened to our friend Alexander (or, more affectionately, Sasha). It’s that Alexander ensured that life happened for all those around him—not necessarily “the usual rigmarole” of one’s day, but the assurance that beauty and order continue regardless. Just as Rick’s café was an oasis from the horror of the Nazi regime and the subsequent events of the Second World War (which, in our story, follow the First World War and the Bolshevik Revolution), so too was Alexander’s grand hotel. I now understood that this was a book about aesthetics. Count/Headwaiter Rostov’s primary business was to safeguard each guest’s dining pleasure—the food, the music, the ambience, the elegant and gracious decorum despite the barbarity of the world outside the hotel doors. As with Viktor, I realized that Alexander, like Rick (or Bogie, the “Man of Intent”), believed that with “the smallest of one’s actions one can restore some sense of order to the world.”

By the time we reach the last page, we see how Alexander has managed to transcend the ugliness of the world by simply “dining, discussing. Reading, reflecting.” Of course, Alexander performs some good deeds along the way (and Towles provides a dramatic climax to the story). But I think that what we learn from the Count about how to enrich each day—for ourselves and those around us—is more important. I am glad I took the advice of my coworker and persevered to the end. Alexander Ilyich Rostov proved not to be “a man so obviously without purpose,” but rather a “Man of Intent.” Even if, like Rick, he was merely righting an upset glass, he was truly a gentle man in Moscow.

Patricia Anders  is the managing editor of Modern Reformation and editorial director of Hendrickson Publishers on the North Shore of Boston.

Patricia Anders

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The novel navigates the journey of a young conscript who eventually becomes gradually dehumanised by army life during the last years of the Soviet Union. Matiushin’s mental state declines as he works as a prison officer in a remote Soviet Asian republic. His brush with insanity is paralleled with his bleak world outside and the trying conditions in which he lives. A semi-autobiographical story, Russian Booker Prize winner Pavlov served as a prison officer in the Khazak steppes while in military service and spent time in a psychiatric hospital after service.

Chernobyl Prayer by Svetlana Alexievich

Not a novel but an important read nonetheless, Chernobyl Prayer is a collection of recollections and ruminations given by the disaster ‘s survivors. It is curated and edited by Nobel Peace Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, who won the award for her work with oral histories and literature about the unfortunate many who have been victims of the Russian State and the Soviet Union. Alexievich has edited the interviews so that they read as a series of harrowing monologues that reveal moments of human kindness, bravery and bleak humour.

The Big Green Tent by Lyudmila Ulitskaya

The Big Green Tent is an epic tale about Moscow’s intelligentsia that sprawls decades, from Stalin ‘s death in 1953 until 1996, several years after the Union’s official collapse. It weaves the stories of three men, their partners and their networks as they encounter the treacheries, oddities and the fates of those who are an active part of the dissidence . The book sets the character against a backdrop of KGB informers, generals and detainees, other members of the intelligentsia and various other characters including Moscow itself. Again, this is a story that is not too far removed from the author’s own life experience – Ulitskaya opposed the State during the Soviet Union.

The Light and the Dark by Mikhail Shishkin

A collection of letters between two lovers becomes an existential meditation on an embattled life and loneliness. Vovka is out fighting in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 , while Sasha remains at home and exists in present time. This aeons-wide time difference is a nod to the infinite and eternal nature of love. Shishkin has won the Russian Booker Prize, Germany’s International Literature Award, as well as the National Best Seller prize. A vocal critic of the Russian government and Putin , he resides in Zurich.

Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin

Also written by Shishkin, Maidenhair is another contemplation of life that is pieced together in letters and written histories. A translator exchanges letters with his son while he translates accounts of traumatised asylum seekers, who are mainly from Chechnya. The narrative is a patchwork of stories about the atrocities that the refugees have encountered, dispersed between a relationship between a father and son. Shishkin manages to create stories that outline personal experience that speak about the broader human experience.

S.N.U.F.F. by Victor Pelevin

A science fiction novel that is set 700 years from now, S.N.U.F.F. is a razor-sharp satire. Some have said the novel reflects the relationship between Russia and Ukraine. However, Pelevin, who is a cynical Russian with an interest in Buddhism, revisits the assertions he made in previous novels, which were that existence is empty and the image of the civilised West and barbaric Russia exist only in the media’s eye. A new world, Big Byz, hovers over what remains over the old one after a catastrophic event obliterated it. Specifically, it hovers over the remnants of Ukraine , which is populated with criminals and reprobates and antagonises Ukraine to war.

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The Women of Lazarus by Marina Stepnova

Both a family saga and a portrait of 20th-century Russia, The Women of Lazaru s weaves stories across three generations of family that reveal elements of Russian life and conveys the hardships and joys of Soviet and post-Soviet living. Jumping back and forth between the generations, it tells the story of Lazarus, a young man who arrives in Moscow as a dishevelled, lice-ridden scientific genius. It tells his story through the main women in his life – the wife of his professor, his own wife and his granddaughter. The novel was shortlisted for the Russian Booker Prize.

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‘Family Guy’ Writer Gary Janetti Talks Hating Flip Flops on Planes, His Love of ‘Below Deck’ and Why He Won’t See the ‘Starlight Express’ Revival

The essayist chronicles his travels in the new book "We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay"

By Marc Malkin

Marc Malkin

Senior Editor, Culture and Events

• ‘Family Guy’ Writer Gary Janetti Talks Hating Flip Flops on Planes, His Love of ‘Below Deck’ and Why He Won’t See the ‘Starlight Express’ Revival 1 day ago
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Gary Janetti really wants air travel attire to step it up.

The television veteran — he’s a longtime writer and producer of “Family Guy” and did the same on “Will & Grace,” “Vicious” and “The Prince” — chronicles his own travel in his new and third collection of essays, “We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay.”

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In the new book, Janetti recalls taking many cruises when he was a child because his father was a salesman for Cunard, hosting a charity event on the Orient Express to Venice with his celebrity stylist husband Brad Goreski , an unforgettable dinner with Maggie Smith in London and much more.

I talked to Janetti while he was – what else? — traveling to promote the book before vacationing in Italy.

You have a rule that no matter how long the trip is, you usually only bring a carry-on. You never check luggage.

I have one carry-on with me right now and I’m gone for three weeks. One carry-on and a backpack.

What kind of carry-on do you use?

It’s actually the one on the book cover. It’s an old Louis Vuitton bag from about 20 years ago. It’s soft and I know how to pack it. I can pack in about 15 minutes.

Did Brad get to read the book before it was off to the printers?

Nobody’s reading it. Even my editor didn’t read it until it was done. Brad didn’t read it until very recently. I don’t like to share things. I don’t want anybody else’s voice in my head. It allows me to be as honest and as direct as possible.

Does Brad ever ask you not to write about something?

Never, not once.

Is there something you will never write about?

When are you going to write a TV series that takes place on a cruise ship?

I did. I wrote a pilot many years ago about cruise ship entertainers called “The Big Splash.” It didn’t go anywhere.

Do you watch “Below Deck?”

We love “Below Deck.” I always identify with people working on the boat. I worked in the service industry for so many years so I’m always identifying with the crew – never a passenger. I identify with the crew and their struggles and dealing with the passengers.

In one essay you write about your first trip to London when you were enrolled in an acting program in college. On the first night, everyone went to see a production of “Richard III” but you opted for “Starlight Express.”

I was 19 and it was my first time traveling by myself. I was in England for the first time. Everyone was like, “We’re going to see Richard III,” and I was like, “I want to see this big splashy spectacle of a musical called ‘Starlight Express.’” But it was it was kind of not the experience that I should have been having that night.

Will you go see the new “Starlight Express” revival?

I’m not a fan, so I don’t anticipate it. But I did see Nicole Scherzinger in “Sunset Boulevard” in London and she was brilliant. I love Andrew Lloyd Weber but “Starlight Express” again? No.

Have you ventured into writing for Broadway?

I have not yet, but I would love to write the book to a musical. It’s something that I’ve always wanted to do.

I have to ask you to weigh in on Donald Trump once having a crush on Debra Messing while you were making “Will & Grace.”

[Laughs] I thought that was…odd. But I think I’ll leave it at that.

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Romance Bookstores Are Booming, Dishing ‘All the Hot Stuff You Can Imagine’

Bookstores once shunted romance novels to a shelf in the back. But with romance writers dominating the best-seller lists, a network of dedicated bookstores has sprung up around the country.

Romance bookstores are largely owned and operated by women, with women making up most of the genre’s readers. Credit... Natalie Keyssar for The New York Times

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By Alexandra Alter

• July 7, 2024

Last summer, when Mae Tingstrom had the idea to open a romance bookstore in Ventura, Calif., the first thing she did was search online to see whether there was already one in her region. She found The Ripped Bodice — a bookstore in Culver City that was doing so well, it was expanding to a second location in Brooklyn.

“That was intimidating,” she said.

If their success was daunting, it also suggested that there might be room for another romance store. So this February, she opened Smitten on a busy strip of Main Street, about 60 miles from her competitor. In the months since, Smitten has become a vibrant hub for romance readers, with author signings, tarot readings, book clubs and trivia and craft nights.

Customers sometimes approach her with highly specific requests. “Someone came in and was like, ‘I like fantasy, I want it to be queer, I want it to have representation from a different culture and I want it to be as smutty as possible,’” Tingstrom said.

And they come in often. “I have regulars who come a couple of times a week,” Tingstrom said. “I’m like, didn’t you just buy two books the other day?”

Once a niche that independent booksellers largely ignored, romance is now the hottest thing in the book world. It is, by far, the top-selling fiction genre, and its success is reshaping not only the publishing industry, but the retail landscape as well.

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