Tell Me What You're Reading No. 37: L. Mark Weeks - Bottled Lightning; Moby Dick; Mark's Writing Journey
My guest for this episode is Mark Weeks, a friend and former colleague at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe. Mark has practiced law at Orrick in New York and Tokyo for more than 30 years and after many years as a Partner and head of Orrick’s Tokyo office, Mark is now a Senior Counsel at the firm. Mark is also a world class, award winning, international saltwater fly fisherman.
It is said that first novels are at least partly autobiographical, and much of Mark’s debut novel, Bottled Lightning, neatly overlaps with his life and career: a top global technology lawyer and avid motorcyclist, born in Alaska and practicing law in Japan. The objective of our discussion was to discuss Mark’s novel, and we did. However, we talked at least as much about Melville’s Moby Dick, which I had mentioned in my introduction, and about Mark’s writing journey. All great. Thanks Mark!
More on Mark: Write to fish. Fish to write.
What Mark is Reading (or referred to in our discussion)
Moby Dick
Reviews and Commentary LitHub - Original 1851 Reviews | The Guardian | The New York Times | The New Yorker | The Nation | Esquire | The Irish Times | Independent | The New York Times | National Review | Kenyon Review | The Atlantic | Howard Mumford Jones | LitHub | Los Angeles Review of Books | Racist Moby Dick Therefore his shipmates called him mad”: The Science of Moby-Dick | The New Yorker | The New Yorker
In the Heart of the Sea - The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick
Reviews The New York Times | The Guardian | Irish Examiner
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street, by Herman Melville
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, by Robert M. Pirsig
The Partner, by John Grisham
Reviews Kirkus | Publishers Weekly
One L, by Scott Turow
Review Kirkus
Payback, by Ronald S. Barak
JK’s Code, by Ronald S. Barak
On Writing, A Memoir on the Craft, by Stephen King
Reviews The New York Times | NPR
The Art of Memoir, by Mary Karr
Reviews The Paris Review | The New York Times | The New York Times | The Washington Post | NPR | Slate | The Chicago Tribune
Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
Reviews The New York Times | Kirkus Reviews
A Swim In a Pond in the Rain - In Which Four Russians Give A Master Class on Writing, Reading and Life, by George Saunders
Reviews The New York Times | The Guardian | Vanity Fair | The Los Angeles Times | The Irish Times | Slate | YouTube
Character development resources —-
- The Importance of Feeling Inferior, by Marie Beynon Lyons Ray
- Understanding Other People, by Stuart Palmer
What Howard is Reading
Moby Dick
Reviews and Commentary LitHub - Original 1851 Reviews | The Guardian | The New York Times | The New Yorker | The Nation | Esquire | The Irish Times | Independent | The New York Times | National Review | Kenyon Review | The Atlantic | Howard Mumford Jones | LitHub | Los Angeles Review of Books | Racist Moby Dick Therefore his shipmates called him mad”: The Science of Moby-Dick | The New Yorker | The New Yorker
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Reviews The New York Times | The New Yorker Radio Hour | An 1886 Review of War and Peace | Tips for Reading War and Peace & Getting Started with Leo Tolstoy | What’s the best translation of War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy? | Columbia Magazine
To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara
Reviews The New York Times | The Washington Post | The Atlantic | The Boston Globe | The Guardian | The Guardian | The Los Angeles Times | The Wall Street Journal | The Financial Times | The Irish Times | The New Yorker
Conversations With People Who Hate Me, by Dylan Marron
Review Kirkus
The Year That Broke America, by Andrew Rice
Reviews The Washington Post | The Los Angeles Times | The Wall Street Journal | Kirkus Reviews | The Nation
Empire of Pain, by Patrick Radden Keefe
Reviews The New York Times | The New Yorker | Vanity Fair | The Los Angeles Times | The Guardian | The Times | Financial Times
Apeirogon, by Colum McCann
Reviews The New York Times | The New York Times | The New York Times | The Guardian | The Guardian | The Wall Street Journal | The Washington Post | LA Review | Aljazeera | The Forward | Partners for Progressive Israel
The Naked Don’t Fear the Water, by Matthieu Aikins
Reviews The New York Times | The Guardian
The Passenger, by Ulrich Alexander Boschwitz
Reviews The New York Times | The Wall Street Journal | The Guardian | The Times
Our Crowd: The Great Jewish Families of New York, by Stephen Birmingham
Reviews Kirkus | Commentary
The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett.
Reviews The New York Times | The Washington Post | San Francisco Chronicle | Los Angeles Review of Books | The Guardian | Financial Times | NPR |
The Collective, by Alison Gaylin
Reviews The Los Angeles Times | Kirkus Reviews | New York Journal of Books
The Other Family
Reviews Criminal Element | Publishers Weekly
Also mentioned …
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
Reviews The New Yorker | The New York Times | The Atlantic | Los Angeles Review of Books | Vogue | The Washington Post | The Guardian |Financial Times | The Guardian | Irish Times
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