Senior Moments: Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Explaining the title of this essay collection, 70-year-old Spiegelman (Seven Pleasures) refers to its eight sage and witty selections as “backward and forward glances by a senior citizen who has reached his biblical allotment of three score years and ten.” In “Talk,” he fondly recalls conversations at family get-togethers, and deems conversation “the essential human art.” By contrast, when traveling in Japan, where he had virtually no grasp of the language, he notes that “what we do not understand, what we cannot read: this is what strikes us abroad.” Several essays express his appreciation of different places where he has lived, notably “Dallas,” about adjusting to the city’s incongruities after he moved there to teach English at Southern Methodist University, and “Manhattan,” which concludes with a magnificent chronicle of a daylong culinary trek from the borough’s top to its bottom. And any dedicated reader will agree with his observation in “Books” that “a genuine reader will pick up anything in sight”—even a matchbook cover when nothing else is available. Spiegelman writes with a casual, engaging style and frequently punctuates his paragraphs with references to literature that crystallize his ideas. Readers will find this volume rich with relatable insights. Agent: Martha Kaplan, Martha Kaplan Agency. (Sept.)