Friends –
End of year Butler: click here.
LAST WEEK IN BUTLER
COVID Survival Tools
Holiday Gift Guide
Louise Glück: Winter Recipes from the Collective
Holiday Ham
Letter from the Editor
Joan Didion
Head Butler now lowers the curtain on 2021. In this city, that’s an achievement. On Broadway, more and more curtains aren’t going up. Restaurant doors remain closed. A break for a week doesn’t usually feel like a long interval. Now it feels like a card game in which the dealer is working with a deck of only wild cards.
I’m hoping to close out my book in this break, but if I had world enough and time, I’d light a fire, pour a tumbler of bourbon — because, in a paisley silk robe and monogrammed slippers, that’s what they did in old movies — and wallow in these books.
Thanks for spending time with me. I wish you safety, health, and all the happiness you can grab.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
You don’t want to spend even a day in bed getting over Omicron. Here’s a survival kit.
CRIME FICTION
The Plot – An unknown writer dies. His writing teacher appropriates the germ of his book.
The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett uncovers dirt in politics.
Peter Temple — Each novel defines “the best.”
CLASSIC FICTION
Edith Wharton — In “The House of Mirth,” it’s a terrible fate to be beautiful, social… and single. Not that much has changed.
Fifth Business – A snowball with a rock in the center hits a pregnant woman, and…
Old Filth – “Failed in London, try Hong Kong.” So he does.
Somerset Maugham — There’s a reason he was the world’s richest, most successful writer.
Remains of the Day – A loyal butler serves a man who’s consorting with the Nazis.
NON FICTION
Madam – Polly Adler “entertained” gangsters, executives, and New Yorker writers.
Putting It Together — the backstage story of “Sunday in the Park with George.”
THE HOME TEAM (FOR THE BORED OR CURIOUS)J
JFK and Mary Meyer – She was killed a year after he was killed. Her diary was burned. I re-imagined it.
Married Sex – The deal was: If tempted to stray, bring that person home. It never happened. And then it did.
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This post was previously published on headbutler.com.
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Photo credit: iStockPhoto.com
