Why are some people highly principled and willing to do anything for their principles, while most of us are not? And I am willing to not only ask, but also answer the question.

We are taught that we can be better than we are. But is there a limit to how good we can be?

Amity Gaige has written a flawless book. It does not contain a single false note. Playful and inventive, SCHRODER movingly depicts the ways we confound our own hearts--how even with the best intentions, we fail to love those closest to us as well as we wish we could. Eric Schroder should take his place among the most charismatic and memorable characters in contemporary fiction, and Amity Gaige her place among the most talented and impressive writers working today.

I believe I'm very conscious of exactly what I'm doing. I'm auditioning lines of dialogue, and I'm interrogating whether the lines would translate from Russian into English the right way. The English that results can perhaps seem somewhat more formal than colloquial, but not so formal as to feel academic.

Here I am: a Russian-speaking Jew living in Canada, and you, an Indian ex-patriot living in San Francisco. All of a sudden we commune in this moment about a much older Russian political dissident.That's the human part of being human: feeling those moments.

There are different types of readers. People draw lines at which three things intersect: the character, the author, and the reader.

Maybe the most provocative thing one can do - and I'm not the first one to do it - is to ask the moral and philosophical question: why are some people better than others? Why are some people more moral than others?