Essays
"Her essays celebrate an uncommon virtue: common decency. Lipman is eloquent and loving about her childhood, growing up with good Irish neighbors who accepted the only Jewish family in their midst. In several essays, Lipman meditates on the large and small kindnesses that have shaped her outlook. Yes, Lipman is nice, sensitive, positive—and old-fashioned... She wears her heart on her sleeve. And, in the end, that has as much going for it in the way of profundity as anything a bitter, snarky postmodernist has to offer." Dominique Browning, for The New York Times Book Review
"Her good nature twinkles on virtually every page of I Can't Complain, a collection garnered from pieces written for magazines, Web sites and newspapers (including The Washington Post). As readers of her fiction know, Lipman is unfailingly funny, and comic flashes illuminate even her saddest essays." Wendy Smith, for The Washington Post
"A feast of bite-sized morsels of humor and wisdom." Kirkus Reviews
"Whether or not one is a Lipman fan before reading this collection, he or she most certainly will be by the time the final page is turned." Publishers Weekly
Recent features
- 61 summers of reading: Elinor Lipman recalls the books that mattered (Washington Post)
- How old are you? Don’t ask, don’t tell. (The Boston Globe)
- With Whisk in Hand, I Celebrate New Love (The Ethel)
"I Might Complain," a column for Parade Magazine
- Whatever Happened to Plain Old "You're welcome"?
- Note the Full Plate, So Yes, I'm Still Working on That
- It's Election Day—Don't Hit Me
The New York Times "Modern Love" essays
- Modern Love the Podcast, read by Sela Ward with Q and A by Elinor
- Taking a Break for Friendship
- Sweetest at the End