Jessica Ferri

Read my review of Miranda July's debut novel, The First Bad Man, at The Barnes and Noble Review. 

"As Doughty explains, no one really knows what the rules are when it comes to death. Families are bullied into giving up their loved ones’ bodies to the funeral home minutes after they die, and often pressured into embalming and expensive caskets. But she goes further than Jessica Mitford’s argument that the problem is business—for Doughty, we must first overcome our fear of death in order to have an honest conversation about what kind of ending we’d like to have."

My review of Caitlin Doughty's memoir, Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, at The Daily Beast! 

Also check out Caitlin's awesome YouTube series, Ask a Mortician. 

And: The Order of the Good Death.

Hello! 

It's been a while, my apologies. I finished my first year of graduate school and got married, so the end of spring and beginning of summer was a bit hectic. But there are so many great books that should not go overlooked. 

Back in January (ye gods . . .) I reviewed Careless People and Flappers for The Barnes and Noble Review, a dual-review on two books about the roaring twenties, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and yes, flappers - ladies like Talullah Bankhead, Diana Cooper, Zelda Fitzgerald, and Nancy Cunard. 

Then we had the next installment of my forgotten treasures column at The Daily Beast - on Angelica Garnett's memoir, Deceived with Kindness. Garnett was Virginia Woolf's niece and eventually married her father's ex-lover. Great read, sadly out of print. 

Beloved Russian author Sergei Dovlatov's novel Pushkin Hills has been reissued in a new translation by none other than his daughter, Katherine. 

And Francine Prose's mega-WWII historical fiction-y novel, Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932,  features a lesbian French auto-racer turned Nazi spy. That part is true.

Finally, a review of I'll Be Right There by Korean author Kyung-Sook Shin, a novel about a group of friends and students during Korea's turbulent 1980s. 

More exciting reviews and announcements to come.

My Daily Beast column on forgotten treasures is back, and I'm very happy to tell you this month is on the brilliant (and sadly negelected) Penelope Mortimer. 

You may know Mortimer as the author of The Pumpkin Eater, a provocative novel about marriage and divorce that was adapted into a film by Harold Pinter starring Anne Bancroft. The Pumpkin Eater has thankfully been reissued under the New York Review Books Classics list, but all of Mortimer's other work, including many more novels (the incredible My Friend Says It's Bulletproof), a biography of the Queen Mother, three volumes of autobiography, one unfinished, and her film criticism at The Observer all remain out of print. 

Do yourself a favor and discover the delight and wit of Penelope Mortimer today. 

Aritzia Magazine's 28th issue went live today and it contains a review of Lorrie Moore's new short-story collection, BARK, and two movie reviews by yours truly. One, The Standbys, is a documentary about Broadway standbys, and the other, The Pretty One, is a quirky romantic comedy starring Zoe Kazan and The New Girl's Jake Johnson. 

In further news, have you heard of this new online grammar checker, Grammarly? In addition to proof-reading they even offer a free plagiarism checker for when you think you're being brilliant but it's just some witty remark by Mark Twain that's been buried in the depths of your unconscious since your undergraduate days. [Sponsored post] 

Thrilled about my new monthly column with The Daily Beast on forgotten treasures - books that are out of print, recently reissued, generally overlooked. 

The first piece is about Two Roads to Dodge City, a collection of letters between father-and-son Ben and Nigel Nicolson written during a simultaneous road trip of America they undertook in 1986, Ben beginning in California, Nigel in Miami, and meeting in the middle in Dodge City. 

As you can imagine, this book is an absolute delight. It's out of print, but you can find used copies online. I found my copy, a first edition, in a fabulous bookstore, The Battery Park Book Exchange, in Asheville, North Carolina - which doubles as a champagne bar. Yeah, you heard that right.

My essay on Sylvia Plath's hair, which was originally published by The Daily Beast, has been adapted for the Indiana University Alumni Magazine. 

Recent reviews:

Camille Claudel 1915, starring Juliette Binoche, at Aritzia Magazine

Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, also at Aritzia Magazine - which was just named one of the best 10 books of the year by The New York Times. 

Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature of All Things at The Barnes & Noble Review

I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Matt Zoller Seitz, one of my favorite critics, about his new book-length interview with none other than Wes Anderson.

Also excited to tell you I am now contributing to Bustle.com. My first piece for them is a list of Big, Fat Books to Devour on Your Precious Days Off. 

Happy Holidays! 

It's been a while!

The clips section of this website is finally updated. I've just started my master's degree in music performance at Brooklyn College, hence the delay. If you're interested in keeping up with my singing, visit singingstudies.tumblr.com.

In the meantime, I'm still writing! Here are a few highlights from the summer:

Julian Barnes' LEVELS OF LIFE
Paul Harding's ENON
Woody Allen's BLUE JASMINE
Donna Tartt's THE GOLDFINCH
Javier Marias' THE INFATUATIONS
Ben Stroud's BYZANTIUM

Eloping in New York: A User's Guide, at The Aesthete

Thanks for reading!

Hello! I'm very excited to tell you I am now writing film and book reviews for Aritzia Magazine. Check out the "In Review" section for reviews of Berberian Sound Studio and The Hunt. 

More to come soon!