Ray Midge News Today

Following up on book recommendations that appeared in this space on Dec. 17, here are more ideas from friends whose opinions on what to read are worth sharing:

Theatlantic.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theatlantic.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.

Im among that fortunate group of Arkansans who read Mike Trimbles stories and columns in the Arkansas Gazette. Running out to the driveway to pick up that mornings Gazette was part of my routine as a boy growing up in Arkadelphia. The Gazettes "Arkansas Traveler" column was one of the first things I read.

In “True Grit,” and other novels, Portis displayed a genius that went beyond character in the strictly literary sense.

How Charles Portis’s greatest success overshadowed the rest of his work

Newspaper writing teaches humility. "It aint art, and you aint Hemingway," more than one city editor has growled at a straining-to-rise cub. A newspaper is a factory; it employs mechanics and craftspeople, but whatever art its employees produce is produced on their own time.

In “The Dog of the North,” Elizabeth McKenzie maps the zany travels of an injury-prone clan with a hole at its center.

Reading Portis for the first time required a significant adjustment to all my previously gathered knowledge of what a person can or should put in a novel if they want it to be good.