Katharine Weber

Katharine Weber's six novels and memoir, all highly-praised, some, award-winning, have made her a book club favorite. Her newest novel and seventh book, STILL LIFE WITH MONKEY (Paul Dry Books), had had rave reviews and praise: "Stark and compelling . . . Rigorously unsentimental yet suffused with emotion: possibly the best work yet from an always stimulating writer."―Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Katharine Weber’s Still Life With Monkey is a beautifully wrought paean of praise for the ordinary pleasures taken for granted by the able-bodied. In precise and often luminous prose, with intelligence and tenderness, Weber’s latest novel examines the question of what makes a life worth living."―Washington Post "[A] deeply but delicately penetrating novel."―New York Times Book Review "Weber’s unsentimental and poignant examination of what does and does not make life worth living is a heartbreaking triumph."―Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Weber's sixth novel is a nuanced investigation of what is left when all of the ways one identifies oneself are wiped out in an instant . . . Beautiful, emotionally resonant storytelling."―Booklist "A brilliantly crafted novel, brimming with heart."―Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Katharine's previous novel, True Confections, the story of a chocolate candy factory in crisis, was published in 2010. Critics raved: "A great American tale" (New York Times Book Review), "Marvelous, a vividly imagined story about love, obsession and betrayal" (Boston Globe), "Katharine Weber is one of the wittiest, most stimulating novelists at work today...wonderful fun and endlessly provocative" (Chicago Tribune),"Succulently inventive" (Washington Post),"Her most delectable novel yet" (L.A. Times). Her sixth book, a memoir called The Memory of All That: George Gershwin, Kay Swift, and My Family's Legacy of Infidelities, published in 2011, won raves from the critics, from Ben Brantley in the New York Times ("Ms. Weber is able to arrange words musically, so that they capture the elusive, unfinished melodies that haunt our memories of childhood") to the Dallas Morning News ("gracefully written, poignant and droll"), the NY Daily News ("Old Scandals, what fun...the core of her tale is that of elegant sin and betrayal"), and the Boston Globe (a masterful memoir of the private world of a very public family"), among others. Katharine was the Richard L. Thomas Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College for seven years. She has taught creative writing at Yale University (for eight years), and was an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the graduate writing program in the School of the Arts at Columbia University for six years. She has taught at various international writing workshops, from the Paris Writers Workshop several summers in a row to the San Miguel de Allende Writers Conference and the West Cork Literary Festival in Ireland. All of Katharine's books have been republished in paperback, some of them in more than one edition, and all are available as e-books. Take note, book groups! In these pandemic times, Zoom visits to book groups can be arranged.