Julian Barnes treats history with a whip of irony. An indignant yet playful voice streams through his novels, a voice that asks just how dependent we are on our past and why. Is history a crutch that actually handicaps us? Is our belief that the past offers the ultimate purchase on truth a massive de

Contemplative, Elegant, Ironic, Playful, Postmodern fiction, Sardonic

Taniguchi Buson, or Yosa Buson, was an influential painter and poet during the Edo period. Born in a suburb of Osaka, Japan, Buson was an orphan who eventually moved to Edo to study painting and haiku poetry in the tradition of Basho. He first gained notice for his visual art -- like much traditional

Elegant, Ethereal, Minimal, Sensual, Serene, Zen & haiku

Imagine the short story as poetry. And imagine that Alice Munro isn't merely a writer -- she is a literary alchemist, stirring, distilling, testing, and violating the language and conventions of the short story with breathtaking results. As fellow short-story writer Lorrie Moore observed, "It's the s

Composed, Dense, Domestic, Elegant, Low realism

It might seem as if she lived an entire lifetime during the writing of "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek." Her voice is that of a wizened old woman with boundless patience and an endless amount of time to observe the smallest sublime moments in nature. But in fact, Annie Dillard wrote the book while she was s

Clever, Contemplative, Elegant, Intense, Literary fiction, Witty