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    When I contact Mona Simpson about setting up an interview timed to the publication of her new novel, "Commitment," she replies in what can only be described as an extraordinary way. She suggests we meet in Glendale, not far from where I live and very far from her Westside home. Simpson, whose 1986 debut novel, "Anywhere but Here," launched both a notable career and a refreshingly clear-eyed ...

      Books in brief "Johanna Porter Is Not Sorry" by Sara Read; Graydon House (320 pages, $17.99) ——— I don't mind telling you, protagonists who do risky things always make me uneasy, although without their foolish behavior there'd probably be no story. In her debut novel, Sara Read takes her title character — Johanna Porter, divorced mom — and turns her into an art thief. At a party at a gallery, ...

        Mid-March might not be the best time to go Up North, but it's a great time to read about being Up North. MINNEAPOLIS — Of course you could go Up North now and find all kinds of things to do. But as a hiker I prefer to wait until the snow is off the trails — which, honestly, could be a while. So for now, I'll make do with reading about being there. Here are 10 books set along the North Shore ...

          NONFICTION: The Pulitzer Prize winner has a bold way of looking at — and solving — poverty. "Poverty, By America" by Matthew Desmond; Crown Publishing, (304 pages, $28) ——— Matthew Desmond wants all of us to become "poverty abolitionists." It's a brilliant term because of the associations it carries throughout Desmond's lively "Poverty, By America": There's the connection to slavery, another ...

            The Plot Thickens Announced earlier this winter, the Edgars — named, natch, for Edgar Allan Poe — are presented annually by the Mystery Writers of America and are now in their 77th year. For those who love crime fiction (and nonfiction), the Edgars are a great way to discover new authors or get reacquainted with old ones. Among this year's nominees were several books I enjoyed last year: Nita ...

              FICTION: A Jewish grandmother revisits her youth among Hollywood émigrés — including an interlude with Greta Garbo — during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. "Künstlers in Paradise" by Cathleen Schine; Holt (272 pages, $27.99) ——— Time is a funny thing. The year 2020 — those months of confinement, fear, frustration and isolation — feels as if it happened ages ago and simultaneously as ...

                NONFICTION: A harrowing exposé of child abuse and torture in Catholic orphanages of the 20th century. "Ghosts of the Orphanage" by Christine Kenneally; PublicAffairs (367 pages, $30) ——— Even after Spotlight, even after Tuam, this book was a shock. Christine Kenneally's exposé of the abuse and torture of children in 20th-century orphanages fits neatly alongside those earlier stories of ...

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