Diane Johnson

Diane Johnson

Diane Johnson is the author, most recently, of Into a Paris Quartier: Reine Margot’s Chapel and Other Haunts of St. Germain. Her latest novel is L’Affaire. (February 2008)

From the Review

February 14, 2008: Will to Live

Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir by David Rieff

April 26, 2007: The Malibu Decameron

Ten Days in the Hills by Jane Smiley

March 29, 2007: The Triumph of Turgenev

Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev by Robert Dessaix

November 16, 2006: True Confessions

I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron

August 10, 2006: Barbara Epstein (1928–2006)

June 23, 2005: In Love with Jane

A Fine Brush on Ivory: An Appreciation of Jane Austen by Richard Jenkyns

Novel Relations: The Transformation of Kinshipin English Literature and Culture, 1748–1818 by Ruth Perry

Jane Austen by Darryl Jones

Jane Austen and the Enlightenment by Peter Knox-Shaw

Jane Austen and the Romantic Poets by William Deresiewicz

Searching for Jane Austen by Emily Auerbach

October 21, 2004: Stiff Upper Lip

The Lemon Table by Julian Barnes

December 4, 2003: False Promises

Where I Was From by Joan Didion

October 23, 2003: The War Between Men and Women (Cont'd)

Mismatch: The Growing Gulf Between Men and Women by Andrew Hacker

September 26, 2002: The Art of Living

A Charmed Couple: The Art and Life of Walter and Matilda Gay by William Rieder

Mysteries of Paris: The Quest for Morton Fullerton by Marion Mainwaring, with a foreword by Richard Howard

March 8, 2001: The Unspoken Word

October 19, 2000: The Best Men?

The Golden Age by Gore Vidal

April 27, 2000: Going West

In America by Susan Sontag

May 20, 1999: Missionary

Single & Single by John le Carré

April 22, 1999: Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999)

July 16, 1998: My Blue Heaven

Raising Baby by the Book: The Education of American Mothers by Julia Grant

Dr. Spock: An American Life by Thomas Maier

Baby and Child Care Seventh edition, by Benjamin Spock, by Steven Parker

Maybe One: A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child Families by Bill McKibben

Family Man by Calvin Trillin

Born That Way: Genes, Behavior, Personality by William Wright

The War Against Parents: What We Can Do for America's Beleaguered Moms and Dads by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, by Cornel West

Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent by Meredith F. Small

December 18, 1997: American Pie

Appetite for Life: The Biography of Julia Child by Noël Riley Fitch

A Welcoming Life: The M.F.K. Fisher Scrapbook compiled and annotated by Dominique Gioia

Marcella Cucina by Marcella Hazan

The All-New Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer, by Marion Rombauer Becker, by Ethan Becker

The American Century Cookbook: The Most Popular Recipes of the 20th Century by Jean Anderson

November 28, 1996: What Do Women Want?

'Bad Girls'/'Good Girls': Women, Sex, and Power in the Nineties edited by Nan Bauer Maglin, edited by Donna Perry

'Feminism is Not the Story of My Life': How Today's Feminist Elite Has Lost Touch with the Real Concerns of Women by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

She Works, He Works: How Two-Income Families are Happier, Healthier, and Better-Off by Rosalind C. Barnett, by Caryl Rivers

The Sibling Society by Robert Bly

The Seasons of a Woman's Life by Daniel J. Levinson

The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood by Sharon Hays

September 21, 1995: The Constant Wife

D.H. Lawrence: The Story of a Marriage by Brenda Maddox

A Genius for Living: The Life of Frieda Lawrence by Janet Byrne

Frieda Lawrence, Including 'Not I, But the Wind' and other autobiographical writings by Rosie Jackson

February 16, 1995: Rags!

Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century by Philippe Perrot, translated by Richard Bienvenu

Sex and Suits by Anne Hollander

The Afghan Amulet: Travels from the Hindu Kush to Razgrad by Sheila Paine

Fashion, Culture, and Identity by Fred Davis

The Empire of Fashion: Dressing Modern Democracy by Gilles Lipovetsky, translated by Catherine Porter, foreword by Richard Sennett

December 2, 1993: Supergirls

Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang by Joyce Carol Oates

September 23, 1993: How Mexican Is It?

Eclipse Fever by Walter Abish

April 8, 1993: Star

Screening History by Gore Vidal

Live From Golgotha by Gore Vidal

Round Up the Usual Suspects: The Making of Casablanca—Bogart, Bergman, and World War II by Aljean Harmetz

M.I.A. or Mythmaking In America by H. Bruce Franklin

April 23, 1992: Do Women Care More? (letter)

January 16, 1992: Something for the Boys

Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly

Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity by David D. Gilmore

Fire in the Belly: On Being A Man by Sam Keen

Transformation: Understanding the Three Levels of Masculine Consciousness by Robert A. Johnson

King Warrior Magician Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore, by Douglas Gillette

Prisoners of Men's Dreams: Striking Out for a New Feminine Future by Suzanne Gordon

Feminism Without Illusions: A Critique of Individualism by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese

The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf

Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women by Susan Faludi

July 18, 1991: Dreams of E.A. Poe

March 28, 1991: The Best of Times

Possession by A.S. Byatt

December 20, 1990: 'Grand Hotel' (letter)

November 22, 1990: Tell, Don't Show

Walter Winchell: A Novel by Michael Herr

Wildlife by Richard Ford

The Screenplay: A Blend of Film Form and Content by Margaret Mehring

June 28, 1990: Back to Mormonism (letter)

March 15, 1990: The Lost World of the Mormons

The Chinchilla Farm by Judith Freeman

'Doc': The Rape of the Town of Lovell by Jack Olsen

The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit, and Death by Steven Naifeh, by Gregory White Smith

Salamander: The Story of the Mormon Forgery Murders by Linda Sillitoe, by Allen Roberts

Windows on the Sea and Other Stories by Linda Sillitoe

March 1, 1990: The Sexual Fast Track (letter)

October 12, 1989: In Bed with Social Science

Sex and Morality in the U.S.: An Empirical Enquiry under the Auspices of the Kinsey Institute by Albert D. Klassen, by Colin J. Williams, by Eugene E. Levitt, edited by Hubert J. O'Gorman

December 8, 1988: 'Aids Without End' (letter)

August 18, 1988: AIDS Without End

Report of the Presidential Commission on the Human Immunodeficiency Virus Epidemic by James D. Watkins chairman. submitted to the President of the United States, June 24, 1988

And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic by Randy Shilts

July 16, 1987: Living Legends

A Sport of Nature by Nadine Gordimer

January 29, 1987: Playtime

Cities on a Hill: A Journey Through Contemporary American Cultures by Frances FitzGerald

December 4, 1986: A House Is Not a Home

Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynski

House by Tracy Kidder

The Englishman's Room edited by Avilde Lees-Milne, photographs by Derry Moore

Designs for Interiors: Catalog to the Exhibition by Stephen Calloway

November 7, 1985: Southern Comfort

In Country by Bobbie Ann Mason

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

March 14, 1985: Conspirators

White Noise by Don DeLillo

October 11, 1984: 'Literary Domestics' (letter)

June 14, 1984: Warlock

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike

April 12, 1984: Darn that Darning

Confidence Men and Painted Women: A Study of Middle-class Culture in America 1830–1870 by Karen Halttunen

The Light of the Home: An Intimate View of the Lives of Women in Victorian America by Harvey Green

Private Woman, Public Stage: Literary Domesticity in Nineteenth-Century America by Mary Kelley

Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages by Phyllis Rose

February 16, 1984: Worst Wishes

Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge by Susan Jacoby

Man Slaughter by Steven Englund

March 31, 1983: Ruskin Our Contemporary?

The Wider Sea: A Life of John Ruskin by John Dixon Hunt

The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin edited by George Allan Cate

The Ruskin Polygon edited by John Dixon Hunt, by Faith M. Holland

New Approaches to Ruskin: Thirteen Essays edited by Robert Hewison

Studies in Ruskin: Essays in Honor of Van Akin Burd edited by Robert E. Rhodes, by Del Ivan Janik

Letters from the Continent 1858 edited by John Hayman

Ruskin and the Art of the Beholder by Elizabeth K. Helsinger

Ruskin and Venice by Jeanne Clegg

Ruskinian Gothic: The Architecture of Deane and Woodward, 1845-1861 by Eve Blau

The Poison Sky: Myth and Apocalypse in Ruskin by Raymond E. Fitch

Ruskin's Maze: Mastery and Madness in His Art by Jay Fellows

August 12, 1982: Rite of Passage

Life After Marriage: Love in an Age of Divorce by A. Alvarez

Marriage, Love, Sex and Divorce by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy

May 27, 1982: Goys Into Wasps (letter)

March 4, 1982: Point of Departure

The Dean's December by Saul Bellow

February 18, 1982: The Flight of the Bumble Bee

The New American Cuisine by the editors of Metropolitan Home

The Elegance with Ease Cookbook by Fern Lebo

Discover Brunch: A New Way of Entertaining by Ruth Macpherson

Cooking with Carrier by Robert Carrier

Robert Carrier's Entertaining

Too Busy to Cook? Bon Appetit magazine

The New York Times More 60-Minute Gourmet by Pierre Franey

Fifteen-Minute Meals by Emalee Chapman

The New James Beard by James Beard

The Park Avenue Cookbook by Sara Stamm

The Helen Corbitt Collection edited by Elizabeth Ann Johnson

Pamela Harlech's Practical Guide to Cooking, Entertaining & Household Management

The Only Texas Cookbook by Linda West Eckhardt

The World's Best Food for Health and Long Life by Michael Bateman, by Caroline Conran, by Oliver Gillie

Kitchen in the Hills: The Hovel Cookbook by Elizabeth West

The Microwave Chinese Cookbook by Lillian Chen, by Edith Nobile

Cookbook from a Melting Pot An E. Paulucci Book, by Elizabeth Paulucci

The Nouvelle Cuisine Cookbook by Armand Aulicino

The French Cuisine of Your Choice by Isabelle Marique, by Albert Jorant

Kitchen Science: A Compendium of Essential Information for Every Cook by Howard Hillman

Chinese Technique by Ken Hom, by Harvey Steiman

Cooking Techniques: How to Do Anything a Recipe Tells You to Do by Beverly Cox, by Joan Whitman

The Cook's Handbook by Prue Leith

Judith Olney's Entertainments: A Cookbook to Delight the Mind and Senses

November 19, 1981: The Heart of the Heart of the Country

Old Glory: An American Voyage by Jonathan Raban

October 8, 1981: After Jonestown

Our Father Who Art in Hell by James Reston Jr.

The Children of Jonestown by Kenneth Wooden

Awake in a Nightmare—Jonestown: The Only Eyewitness Account by Ethan Feinsod

In My Father's House: The Story of the Layton Family and the Reverend Jim Jones by Min S. Yee, by Thomas N. Layton

Journey to Nowhere: A New World Tragedy by Shiva Naipaul

The Strongest Poison by Mark Lane

April 2, 1981: Colette in Pieces

Letters from Colette selected and translated by Robert Phelps

November 6, 1980: Waiting for Righty

Loon Lake by E.L. Doctorow

May 15, 1980: Not Right for Our Rose

John Ruskin and Rose La Touche: Her Unpublished Diaries of 1861 and 1867 introduced and edited by Van Akin Burd

February 21, 1980: Correction and Clarification (letter)

February 7, 1980: The Talk of Nohant (letter)

December 6, 1979: Death for Sale

The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer

October 11, 1979: She Had It All

My Life by George Sand, translated and adapted by Dan Hofstadter

George Sand in Her Own Words translated and edited by Joseph Barry, introduction by Ellen Moers

The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters translated by A.L. McKenzie

The Double Life of George Sand, Woman and Writer by Renee Winegarten

September 27, 1979: Cult Freedom (letter)

June 14, 1979: Ruskin's Originality (letter)

June 14, 1979: Beyond the Evidence

Sleepless Nights by Elizabeth Hardwick

April 19, 1979: Heart of Darkness

The Suicide Cult: The Inside Story of the Peoples Temple Sect and the Massacre in Guyana by Marshall Kilduff, by Ron Javers

Guyana Massacre: The Eyewitness Account by Charles A. Krause, with Lawrence M. Stern, by Richard Harwood, by Frank Johnston

Hold Hands and Die!: The Incredibly True Story of the People's Temple and the Reverend Jim Jones by John Maguire, by Mary Lee Dunn

Six Years With God: Life Inside Reverend Jim Jones' Peoples Temple by Jeannie Mills

January 25, 1979: The Return of Ruskin

Ruskin's Venice edited by Arnold Whittick

Looking at Architecture with Ruskin by John Unrau

John Ruskin: The Argument of the Eye by Robert Hewison

Ruskin by Quentin Bell

October 26, 1978: Home Remedies

Families by Jane Howard

June 15, 1978: Release Ngugi (letter)

June 15, 1978: Unkind Cut (letter)

March 23, 1978: Ah, Wilderness!

The Last Cowboy by Jane Kramer

Coming into the Country by John McPhee

November 10, 1977: The Oppressor in the Next Room

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

White Rat by Gayl Jones

Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson

April 28, 1977: The Mysterious West (letter)

April 28, 1977: Hard Hit Women

How to Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong

A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion

Lover by Bertha Harris

February 3, 1977: Ghosts

The Names by N. Scott Momaday

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

Encounter with an Angry God by Carobeth Laird

November 25, 1976: Justice to Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë: The Self Conceived by Helene Moglen

October 14, 1976: An Expert's Obligation (letter)

October 14, 1976: Friendly Fire (letter)

August 5, 1976: True Patriots

Friendly Fire by C.D.B. Bryan

April 29, 1976: The People v. Patty Hearst

April 1, 1976: Degrees of Rape (letter)

December 11, 1975: The War Between Men and Women

Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller

Rape: The Bait and the Trap by Jean MacKellar, with the collaboration of Dr. Menachem Amir

Rape and Its Victims: A Report for Citizens, Health Facilities and Criminal Justice Agencies Enforcement Assistance Administration, Washington, DC. Criminal Justice Reference Service, PO Box 24036, Southwest Post Office, Washington, DC 20024 by the Center for Women Policy Studies et al., funded by the Law

From New York Review Books

Manservant and Maidservant At once the strangest and most marvelous of Ivy Compton-Burnett's fictions, Manservant and Maidservant has for its subject the domestic life of Horace Lamb, sadist, skinflint, and tyrant.

Books by Diane Johnson

Le Mariage (2000)
Le Divorce (1997)
Natural Opium: Some Travelers' Tales (1993)
Health and Happiness (1990)
Persian Nights (1987)
Dashiell Hammett, a Life (1983)
Terrorists and Novelists (1982)
Lying Low (1978)
The Shadow Knows (1974)
Edwin Broun Fred: Scientist, Administrator, Gentleman (1974)
The True History of the First Mrs. Meredith and Other Lesser Lives (1972)
Burning (1971)