Our man in Boston sits down for a frank accounting with Tony Horwitz, author of beloved works like Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches From the Unfinished Civil War. Here they chat about his new book on John Brown—still a divisive figure in America, particularly in these days of terrorism—and the
Our man in Boston sits down for an extended chat with author Joan Wickersham about her new story collection, lurking near architects, the wisdom of good editors, how to profit from artist colonies, and the benefits of avoiding the MFA trap.
Our man in Boston sits down for an extended chat with the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, covering Kissinger's travel woes, the beauty of track meets, and the very best place to be a fiction writer in America: Dallas.
Our man in Boston talks to screenwriter and novelist Attica Locke about writing in Hollywood, the origins of her second novel, and where exactly British prisoners locate the moral heart of The Wire.
Our man in Boston puts the mighty Charles Yu in the ragtop and interrogates him over his background, dystopian fiction, lawyering for a day job, his lack of a creative writing graduate degree, Apple thingies, and why economists operate under pen names.
Our man in Boston sits down with Martin Amis for their sixth chat to discuss Nabokov, dictionaries, spiteful reviews, the death of Christopher Hitchens, and the freedom of writing fiction.
Our man in Boston talks with writer Ron Rash about his latest book, America's great regional voices, the high percentage of readers in New Zealand and Australia, and the misery that accompanies putting a novel together, where it's rather more fun to stick pencils in your eyes.
Our man in Boston sits down with the author of The Financial Lives of the Poets to talk about his latest novel, how to survive in Hollywood, the ins and outs of contemporary publishing, and that unheralded Paris of the Northwest, Spokane.
Our man in Boston and the author discuss her latest novel, Enchantments, the writing process, how book reviewing works at the New York Times, what it's like to be nastied, and the life and times of two writers raising children without a television in the house.
Our man in Boston talks to the Pulitzer-winning novelist about his new memoir, Thoughts Without Cigarettes, as well as nights in New York, parks in Berlin, how publishing currently compares to Indian restaurants, what life would be like if Mambo Kings hadn't hit it big, and the difficulties of writ
The rise and fall of Richard Nixon has been the subject of many histories, but perhaps none so insightful as Thomas Mallon's latest novel Watergate. A conversation about crime, ambition, booze, and Christopher Hitchens.
Our man in Boston talks to author and artist Ben Katchor about the history of picture-stories—from the days when literature included drawings to our current world of (sadly) more purified genres.
Our man in Boston sits down for the sixth time with Russell Banks to discuss his latest novel, the movie business, Mitt Romney, the emigration of investigative journalists, and why it's wise to wait until your 70's before writing about obsessive love.
Our Man in Boston sits down for this third conversation with author, critic, and book-world majordomo Sven Birkerts to talk about the current reviewing situation, the best books of 2000, and Amy Winehouse.
A chat between our man in Boston and the writer Nicole Krauss about her latest book, in which her latest book is barely discussed.
Our man in Boston sits down with the Pulitzer-winning novelist to discuss Australian literature, Harvard's (neglected) charter to educate American Indians, and those residents of Martha's Vineyard who say no to Chardonnay.
Booker Prize-winner John Banville discusses writing crime novels under a pseudonym, hanging around with authors who own multiple homes, and why literature takes longer to produce than pulp.
Our man in Boston and Jim Shepard, the author most recently of You Think That's Bad, discuss whacko projects, researching short stories by jet, and how much gold it takes for a writer to dump Knopf's Gary Fisketjon.
Our man in Boston sits down with the extremely likeable Arthur Phillips to chat about everything, including his latest novel.
Our man in Boston sits down with the author of the "Berlin Noir" trilogy and other books, to talk about detectives, Nazis, and Impressionist writing.
Our man in Boston sits down with writer Andre Dubus III to discuss the differences between memoir and autobiography, Harvard and UMass students, and when it is inappropriate to send an email.
Our man in Boston talks with memoirist and historian Carlos Eire to discuss Cuba and Operation Peter Pan, when 15,000 children were airlifted away from their parents.
Our man in Boston sits down with author Gretel Ehrlich to talk about daily life in the Arctic Circle, good wine, Tom McGuane, and how to go online from an off-the-grid cabin in Wyoming.
Our man in Boston sits down with Scott Spencer, author most recently of Man in the Woods, to talk about writing, dogs, and show business.
Our man in Boston speaks Mary Roach, author most recently of Packing for Mars, about severed-hand fan mail, writing in an office, and Coke in space.
Our man in Boston talks to the author of Super Sad True Love Story about writing in the near-future, signing readers' e-readers, and abusing a six-foot bong.
Our man in Boston talks with author (and TMN contributor) Jessica Francis Kane about a tragedy during the Blitz that's the focus of her new novel, The Report.
Our man in Boston sits down with author and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman to discuss independent publishing, the edges of art, and Celebrity Chekhov.
Endowed with modest talents, I have found it good practice to follow in the footsteps of giants. So in talking and writing (which is talking on the page) about books, I follow Nobel laureate Wislawa Szymborska’s lead. In her tome (which I recommend to anyone who presumes to be
I am not a literary statistician or demographer, and am thus unqualified to assess how many women writers’ books the New York Times reviews as opposed to white men writers. And I couldn’t say what kind of review attention Algonquin Press’s wonderful story annual New Stories from the
This is the time of year when football, America’s Game, the most insidious video game of all, overtakes large parts of the country’s population, most of whom fall into the classification known as human tubers—ostensibly sentient beings almost totally unaware of what is required to play this
James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency and proprietor of the delightful web journal Clusterfuck Nation, is probably—based on his views of the oil peak, suburbia, and America’s gimme-something-for-nothing ethos—viewed as a kook, mountebank, or whatever is currently the worst thing to be (Muslim? gyspsy/Roma?
Apparently there’s been keening by a number of white women writers that the New York Times disproportionately touts white males—in this case, Jonathan Franzen and his new opus Freedom received some attention (disproportionate to the relevance of their complaints) here and there. Personally, I might have taken the
Reading a Guardian article headlined “Jodi Picoult attacks favoritism towards ‘white male literary darlings’—Bestselling author attacks New York Times for narrow focus of its review coverage” had me checking to ascertain that I wasn’t somehow shanghaied and thrown back into the 20th century via a time machine. That
Perhaps future anthropologists, stirring the entrails of our American civilization, will find it remarkable that in the third millennium of the Christian era, Time magazine placed novelist Jonathan Franzen on its cover. What I find remarkable is that anyone thinks the dying gasps of an endangered media species are news
Our man in Boston sits down to chat with author Jennifer Egan about her new novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, and what it's like to write in PowerPoint.
Last week’s version of this bulletin included notice of Tony Judt’s latest opus. Sadly, this week’s news is that Judt has passed on, as some express it, to his greater glory. Here’s the New York Timesobituary. My colleague Mike Smith at this fortress of truth and
More than a few people have expressed to me some inchoate feeling that, yes, August is upon us. This seems to be an expression of discomfort with the rapidity with which the current season is falling away. And in my view, a minor symptom of a larger distemper which is,
Ten years after their first conversation, author David Mitchell and our man in Boston discuss 18th-century Japan, shoplifting from other novels, and Mitchell's annual Christmas party.
Inquire of any observer within reasonable proximity of his or her wits and I doubt any would say that last week represented a hopeful moment in the life of our ailing republic. You, of course, already know the other symptoms—imperialistic hubris run amuck; “too big to fail” capitalist hyenas
A conversation with Australian novelist Richard Flanagan about the erosion of book culture, Nicole Kidman's genius, and souls that are ever underline-able.
Not being a statistician, I am not offering this as a fact, but my sense is that there are more short story collections being published than ever. And given the distortions of time that obtain in our enveloping warp-speed world, one would think that short fiction would be the preferred
The notion that insanity is the only rational response to a mad and maddening world—a notion romantically articulated by exotic psychiatric adventurer and trailblazer R.D. Laing in the euphoric phase of the Vietnam War era (“Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world”)—still holds some allure
Having recently resumed my status, as Facebook would state it, of being “in a relationship,” and having adopted a three-month-old Labrador-Australian Cow Dog hybrid named Beny (about whom you will no doubt hear more about in the future), I find myself again more paying attention to the endless stream of
Integrating the bulletins from the real world (for lack of a better phrase) with the books one chooses to read, and the movies and videos one views, is no small task, especially for dedicated, inveterate readers. As a youth I recall being able to compartmentalize the characters and storylines, or
This seems to be the season for the publication of some of my favorite writers. (Actually, I think every season is.) Alan Furst’s 10th novel, Spies of the Balkans (Random House), quells any fears that the author might be, as they say, phoning it in. Set in Salonika, Greece,
Maybe the only thing you can depend on these days, in what was to have been our brave new world (did I miss it?), is the predictability of those benighted outlets that coalesce to form the corporate behemoth inaccurately labeled “mainstream media.” Articles on beach books or summer reading, which
Our man in Boston goes the distance with author and New Yorker editor David Remnick in a conversation about President Obama, magazine publishing, and American Idol.
Tom Rachman’s debut novel The Imperfectionist (Dial Press) obviously makes use of his newspaper experience working at the Associated Press as a reporter in Sri Lanka and India, and as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris. Perhaps it’s my inattention, but Rachman’s fictional international,
I’ve been meaning to mention this since I noted the recent monograph on the inimitable Molly Ivins, that there is a one-woman play entitled Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins, which hopefully will be coming to a theater near you. Consider this: Ms. Turner
Marilynne Robinson (Gilead) is, of course, a gifted novelist and a highly-regarded mentor at the University of Iowa’s Writer’s Workshop. She is no stranger to nonfiction, having published two collections of essays, Mother Country and The Death of Adam. Now comes Absence of Mind (Yale University Press) in
David Shields’s Reality Hunger, which claims to be a manifesto of sorts, is an interesting read—around 600 epigrams illustrating something or other about the demise of fiction. Actually, I am still not sure what it claims, which may cause you to stop reading right here. I have talked
As you already are aware, due to my diligent investigations and conscientious opening of my emails, Melville House Publishing created the first ever Moby Awards for (the biggest thing to hit publishing since blurbs) book trailers. The best and worst winners are available here, and there is also some snippy
As I have pointed out somewhere else, the intellectual dustup surrounding the varied reception of Muslim thinkers Tariq Ramadan and Hirsi Ali, mentioned in Paul Berman’s The Flight of Intellectuals, has taken place mostly in the rarified heights of our smarter periodicals. Carlin Romano has his say, commending Berman
To that small but mighty cadre of the readers concerned with literature in translation, the republication of Suzanne Jill Levine’s seminal The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction (Dalkey Archive Press) is (or will be) welcome news. Levine, herself an able and well-regarded translator of Latin masters such as
I must confess I hardly know where to begin in talking about what is destined to be seen as Anthony Julius’s magnum opus: Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England (Oxford U Press). Julius, who was the defense attorney in the infamous Irving vs. Lipstadt Holocaust
Canadian-born poet, MacArthur “Genius” Award-winner, and scholar Anne Carson—of whom Susan Sontag decreed, “She is one of the few writers writing in English that I would read anything she wrote”—offers her first book of poetry since Decreation (2006), Nox (New Directions). Though to call Nox a book is
Speaking of translation (see recent item), New Directions has an interview with poet/essayist/translator Elliot Weinberger (What Happened Here: Bush Chronicles). Of the many gems and nuggets to be found there is this: New York Times It should not go unmentioned that What Happened Here contains a compelling indictment
When I received notice of Dalkey Archive Press’s Summer sale, it reminded me I just don’t do enough for those noble publishing houses like Dalkey, Archipelago, and Open Letter, all of whom publish excellent and important literature from around our troubled planet—in other words, literature in translation.
James Lord (Mythic Giacometti), memoirist of a certain artistic set that included Gertrude Stein, Picasso, and Giacometti, died recently. His fourth memoir, My Queer War (FSG), deals with his WWII army experiences, and as William Grimes quotes Lord from another time, “An autobiographer is in the business of doing for
Forgive me if you have a problem with me honoring another dead white man but, in my world, to ignore the publication of a book by Jorge Luis Borges, who died in 1986, would be entirely unforgivable. In this case, a new, compact anthology, Everything and Nothing (New Directions) by
North Carolina-born poet Tony Hoagland (What Narcissism Means to Me), who is well-regarded and lauded in the poetry world (which is hardly ever confused as the real world), might have titled his new long-awaited collection (Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty, Graywolf Press) something along the lines of Poets
The pantheon of chanteuses whose voices and phrasing could jackhammer your buried feelings from the tomb of defenses that life inevitably creates is not especially large—but its members are truly gifted in rising out of harrowing narratives to give unique voice to grief, torment, and tribulation. Nina Simone, Edith
Poet Paul Guest (My Index of Horrifying Knowledge) was permanently paralyzed in a bike accident at the age of 12, which, as Mary Karr points out, “is the least interesting thing about his work.” In “User’s Guide to Physical Debilitation,” he alludes to his situation: Guest’s new book,
In that evanescent realm which I think of as my reading experiences there are a handful of writers whose narrative skills move them beyond the increasingly respectable category of so-called “genre fiction” to the seemingly more respected arena of “literary fiction”—Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, Charles McCarry, Alan Furst, Thomas
In American history one might corral any number of examples—Vietnam and Iraq, Warren Harding and George Bush, the elections of 1876 and 2000, Enron and AIG et al., and more—to support a theory which maintains that as a nation, the United States does not seem to learn from
Ever since I read (in 1977) Thomas Whiteside’s exposition on tomatoes, entitled simply “Tomatoes,” I have used it as an example of 1) the discovery of a piece of writing on a subject I was not inclined to pay attention and, 2) another good reason the New Yorker is
Though both bestselling authors (being a singular category) John Grisham and Scott Turow are well liked in what is a testy and envy-rich sub-culture, I have not been moved to read their novels and writings. I might have read the book that launched Turow’s career (Presumed Innocent), but it’
The term film noir gets tossed around quite a bit in the polyphonious public conversations about movies—it’s possible that its meaning has been diluted to mean anything that takes place at night that has the slightest hint of human mayhem. Thus the publication of an updated Film Noir
There may be a tendency to dismiss intra-left political conflicts with a version of the old saw about literary squabbles—that is, the reason they are so impassioned and contentious is they argue about so little. Though there are jokes to be made about the apparent self-destructiveness of the Left
Though my education was decidedly inferior (a product of the Chicago Public Schools and lower-tier universities), that dis-educational experience did not seem to affect my interest in history and its broadest expression, the various narrative arts (for which I still owe thanks to mother who pushed me into my autodidactic
While I assign to the film Saturday Night Fever the role of token/emblem of the worst decade in my lifetime, I have never enlarged that judgment to include the whole of the most prevalent music of the time, disco. In the main because I admired the talents of the
As an unrepentant Vietnam war dissenter, political contrarian, and admirer of Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, and Christopher Hitchens, I had a feeling I would not be able to read very much of Karl Rove’s new memoir Courage and Consequence (Threshold Editions). But seized by a moment of attempted fairness,
My first impulse upon encountering this article, found in/on the ostensibly British Guardian newspaper/website penned (forgive the old-school locution) by their Manhattan correspondent Ed Pilkington, was dismissal. And upon short reflection my view remained unchanged. I’m not sufficiently acquainted with current brain science (actually not familiar at
Reading Agni editor and Harvard mentor (The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age) Sven Birkets at his best is like listening to an old-style baritone crooner like Johnny Hartmann squeeze every last nuance from a classic ballad. The occasion for this observation is Birket’s meditation
Leslie Jamison certainly has some weighty credentials—though I am in a quandary as to which element of her neophytic novelist capsule-bio/gestalt moved me to pick up her debut novel, The Gin Closet (Free Press). I am even considering the subliminal connection to my reading of Dan Okrent’s
My guess is very few of you have read novelist Gilbert Sorrentino (Mulligan Stew, Gold Fools), probably through no fault of yours, and most certainly through no fault of his. This accomplished writer, who was felled by the big C in 2006, had published over 30 books, mostly fiction, and
Probably everyone knows someone whose predilection for collecting has gone off the rails and might be viewed as a pathological condition. (Consider the two daffy uncles in Diane Keaton’s 1995 film Unstrung Heroes.) Randy Frost and Gail Steketee, social scientists and scholars, have taken their decade-long research into what
May is National Older Americans Month, Get Caught Reading Month, Meditation Month, Clean Air Month, Haitian Heritage Month, and a host of others—in honor of which I want to continue noting and advocating poetry. In this instance, Lucia Perillo, whose Inseminating the Elephant (Copper Canyon Press) was a finalist
For the purpose of this communiqué I don’t need to resolve whether myth-making is both a necessary and sufficient ingredient of nationalism—let’s agree that it is at least a sufficient condition. Hence, the various fabricated or embellished narratives regarding the Pilgrims and their Native American hosts, the
Spring brings forth a number of wonders, not the least of which are the quarterly editions of so-called small literary magazines. Since I am graced to be on the mailing lists of a number of my favorites, I am happy to note some highlights. Ploughshares (Spring 2010, Vol 36), which
Such has been the influence of Chilean novelist Robert Bolaño that every posthumous publication of his ouevre has been hungrily devoured by the growing multitudes of his admirers. Now comes Antwerp, translated by Natasha Wimmer (New Directions), which was written in 1980 but first published in 2002, just before Bolaño’
As is occasionally the case, I owe (and I hope I speak for his Washington Post readers) a debt of gratitude (whatever that is) to Jonathan Yardley for apprising me of the publication of Mencken on Mencken: A New Collection of Autobiographical Writings, edited by Mencken scholar S.T. Joshi
One may view our encounters with sounds and silence as a quotidian matter, but as Patrick Madden quotes Montaigne in his collection of essays, “From the most ordinary and commonplace things, if we could put them in their proper light, can be formed the greatest miracles of nature and the
Sometimes I actually take note of how many days are like that winter holiday where people are encouraged to spend all the money they make on gifts, and then they are encouraged to shop at sales and buy the stuff they bought for other people at deep discounts. The various
Back in the closing years of the last century, Jon Lee Anderson, who currently writes lucid and useful dispatches from the world’s hotspots—current and future—for the New Yorker, hied himself and his young family to Havana and wrote what is currently the definitive biography of Ernesto Che
My sense of the fin-de-siècle years in American pop culture and the decades leading up to them is that the reactionary ‘70s were followed by an era of escalating exuberance—one barometer of that was the burgeoning importance of design and designers, in fashion, interiors, and consumer goods. In the
There is something odd about a quintessentially American book having been written by a Frenchman, an oddity perhaps compounded by being one of the most unread well-known titles in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville’s two-volume Discovery of America, published in 1835 and 1840 after the young Frenchman’s nine-month
As I write this, the honorable literary organization PEN is holding its Sixth Annual World Voices Festival of International Literature, which is a thing of wonder and joy if you are proximal to the universal center of ambition (or are inclined to transport yourself there) and you are a devotee
The assassination-history business in the U.S., while not a thriving enterprise, does provide an occasional narrative from a decidedly warped point of view—though of the successful presidential assassinations, only John Willkes Booth’s and Lee Harvey Oswald’s have spurred countless treatises and analyses. In the main because
Sex education has always seemed like a counterintuitive enterprise to me—which doesn’t reduce its importance in a culture which, at the least, broadcasts mixed messages about sexuality and human relations. And, of course, government involvement in sex education continues to be a controversial issue. Thus a book like
Besides the malcontents and know-nothings who are apt to bleat out various accusations about some media conspiracy (failing even to understand the distinction between media and journalism), for the most part it would appear that the only people who are concerned about the state of American journalism are malcontents and
I suspect there are not many collections (if any) like The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (edited by Ilya Kaminsky and Susan Harris of Words Without Borders). Gathered within its pages are some of the finest poems from around the planet written in the 20th century. And it claims to
Just what the world needed, another award and another award show. Denis Loy Johnson, of Melville House Publishing, who is a shrewd and savvy fellow and outspoken journalist (and who I first came across when he put out a very useful website called Moby Lives, and who shared my antipathy
Though throughout my reading life I would occasionally read short fiction, it wasn’t until I spoke with writer/Florida State University creative writing program head honcho Mark Winegardner that I saw short stories in a different light. In my world—forget me as a college professor and a writer—
Before compact discs, before cassette tapes, before eight-track tapes, there was a playback medium called the long-playing record. It was a 12-inch disc (there were also seven-inch discs called “singles”) made of black vinyl (although occasionally they were colored differently). They were encased in a “jacket cover,” which exhibited artwork
Given the subject—Barack Obama—and the author—Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and New Yorker editor David Remnick—it makes sense that Remnick’s new tome, The Bridge (Knopf), would receive widespread attention and review coverage. And it probably would, at some point, make more sense or be (at the least)
I am not au courant with the latest taxonomical view of what was (and still is, I suppose) at one point referred to as the “graphic novel.” Though that rubric may be troublesome, other possibilities are no less insufficient—comic books, cartoons, still movies. In any case, what is clear
If you are not an accidental reader of this whatchamacallit then you are the type of person who is well aware of the new HBO series Treme (which you probably also know, after airing only two episodes, has been renewed for a second season). The attention paid to creator David
I suppose I ought not be surprised that entertainment business big macher Jerry Weintraub’sbook, When I Stop Talking, You’ll Know I’m Dead: Useful Stories from a Persuasive Man (with Rick Cohen)is a best-seller (Amazon rank #112). Americans have a keen interest in inside-baseball stories, and apparently
One wonders what it takes to staunch the hemorrhaging of originality from cultural conversation—in this case, the overuse of Yadda-Yadda-Nation this or Blah-Blah-Planet that? The clichéd title being the only complaint I can raise with this compendium of 29 dissident texts entitled Protest Nation: Words That Inspired a Century
Siglio Press’s publication of Torture of Women, created by renowned (feminist) artist Nancy Spero, who died in 2009, is the reiteration in well-designed and printed book form of her 1976 creation. Originally a 125-foot work “juxtaposing testimony by female victims of torture with startling imagery from the ancient world,
The notion of considering the happiness of the citizenry is not a particularly novel one (think Jeremy Bentham), though the burgeoning of happiness research appears to be a growth industry. These days the disaffected white people who are holding various anti-something-or-other rallies around the country seem to elicit at least
One might view tinkering with the Homeric epics a foolish endeavor or a brave effort—in any case, it is not a project lacking in ambition. Young Zachary Mason’s debut novel (if that is what this book is), The Lost Books of the Odyssey (FSG), envisions Odysseus’s tale
Perhaps it is inevitable that a giant like the Nobel laureate and Chilean poet Pablo Neruda suffers posthumous paper cuts at the hands of academic scolds such as Ilan Stavans (who mocks and scorns the poet as a Stalinist stooge). Happily, we have also been graced with the posthumous publication
Though I am not convinced that most writers’ lives are particularly interesting, there is no dearth of biographies of writers nor is the supply of new offerings dwindling. There is a subset of field of inquiry that examines the lives of a writers identified with a literary clique or cadre—
In my world, the build-up and anticipation for David Simon’s crew’s new creation Treme was hypertensive, culminating with the airing of the first episode on Sunday last. Perhaps the wider universe was preoccupied with the foibles of an errant golfer and hopefully paying some attention as the Catholic
My personal ambivalence regarding artistic awards and other swimsuit contests (e.g., the Oscars, Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Nobel) is summed up by Pulitzer-winner Gail Caldwell’s observation “that the prize didn’t mean much until you win it.” I am in no danger of winning one of those
Dwight Garner, who is a devoted book person, reader, and a columnist for the New YorkTimes, has assembled and annotated a compendium of 300 book ballyhoos, entitled Read Me: A Century of Classic Book Advertisements (Ecco). I had this tome buried in one of those K-2’s of books that
I know novelist Cathleen Schine (The New Yorkers) to be a talented and amusing writer, but somehow I have never been attracted to her stories. Her new novel, The Three Weissmanns of Westport (FSG), is reportedly an homage to Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility—which makes me wonder what
Pearl London was a beloved teacher and writer at the New School. In 1970, she started to invite guests to her seminar that over 25 years became called “Works in Progress.” Guests included Maxine Kumin, Robert Hass, June Jordan, Galway Kinnell, Muriel Rukeyser, Charles Simic, Ann Carson, Paul Muldoon, Robert
Texas is the punch line to a lot of gallows humor about the American criminal justice system, and my recent note on attorney David Dow’s book, The Autobiography of an Execution, points out the reality. Here’s some data to add to the grim picture: * Rank of Texas’s
For lack of a better metaphor, suffice it to say that visits from my UPS driver and his delivery brethren make almost every day like Christmas at my address. But the recent arrival of Fantagraphics’s Gahan Wilson’sFifty Years of Playboy Cartoons (three volumes, slip-cased, 942 pages), containing over
Even avid students of American governance and civic-minded people may fall a little short in their understanding of the least accessible branch of the United States national government—I am referring to the Supreme Court, occasionally referred to by various commentators as the Supremes. That understanding is not advanced by
Not to worry, I am not going to go crazy on this poetry thing (I don’t think). But I couldn’t get past Russian-born Vera Pavlova’s slender volume, If There Is Something to Desire: One Hundred Poems (Knopf; reportedly her first full-length volume in English), translated from the
The fact that April is designated National Poetry Month (by what governing body escapes me, though I would not be surprised to learn that the pack of scoundrels in our Congress had lent their sketchy imprimatur to it) might have some meaning if it were not competing with National Stress
Though I am not an (religiously) observant Jew, I am appreciative and simpatico with various myths and legends and teachings of my people. And I am especially thankful that the Israelites have avoided the voodoo of creating saints—which is, I suppose, an entertaining and consoling enterprise for folk who
Such are the caprices of the book world that the intersection of art and commerce occasionally produces interesting distractions and ambiences (sic). Given the Darwinian forces (natural selection?) at play in the publication of books (more so with literary fiction), there are frequent efforts to advance a back story in
If it were not for the New YorkTimes’s critic’s resounding advocacy of Ron Rash’s writing, I would most certainly be quibbling with the opening statement: “Ron Rash was the seasoned author of nine books of fiction and poetry before his 10th, the stunning 2008 Serena, [apparently the
There is an odd reversal of polarities when the notion of resting and setting aside a period of time for a kind of imposed tranquility is considered utopian. But of course the achievement of states-of-affairs, when the modifier “24/7” is viewed as a positive attribute implying at the least
No surprise that we live in a world full of junk science, unhelpful self-help, and freakish social sciences—which makes culling the valuable from the vapid somewhat perilous. Not that my approval in these areas is should be construed as a warranty of validity. Fortunately, Dr. Louann Brizendine, whose credentials
In spite of a conscientious indifference in the more reactionary and confused quarters of the American polity, that pesky Vietnam thing still lingers in the ether, foreshadowing and resonating and doing everything except fading into the obscurity Americans generally ignore known as history. Fortunately, or inshallah, the history has been
As it is a birthday of sorts (there is a story here, but you will have to wait for the publication of my memoir-in-progress, Just Talking: How to Have Fun With Words), I am taking an opportunity to offer some personal observations (as opposed to the barely disguised morsels normally
Having succumbed to the old-fashioned precept that a liberal education was useful for more than vocational guidance and career enhancement, I chose to study philosophy as an undergraduate, more specifically various tributaries of logical positivism that flowed from that Amazon river of 20th-century philosophy, the Vienna Circle. Of course one
Avante-garde composer John Cage's composition 4’33” created at the midpoint of the twentieth century, was conceived of without a single musical note. In his monograph No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33”, composer and Bard music mentor Kyle Gann writes: 4’ 33” Gann unpacks
Had friend David Meggesey, author of the highly regarded Out of Their League (selected by Sports Illustrated in 2002 as one of the top 100 sports books ever written) and former NFL Players Association apparatchik not recommended Rus Bradburd’s Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson
OK, I admit that I am blind to the allure of books about food, chefs, or most of what seems to excite the foodie partisans of the reading world. I did enjoy Amanda Hesser’s romance memoir and Barbara Haber’s social history, From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon
Brit foreign correspondent Rob Crilly (currently covering East Africa for The IrishTimes), having covered wars in Darfur, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, has spent five years in Sudan, and his book, Saving Darfur: Everyone’s Favourite African War (Reportage Books), both clarifies a conflict that he convincingly argues
David Kirby (The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems), who is a poet by profession (as in calling, not career), put together an extended hagiographic essay on the life of one Richard Wayne Penniman, Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll (CONTINUUM BOOKS)—Richard, a favorite son
Arguably there are two sure-fire subjects that will get you a book contract: the current (everlasting) educational crisis and depression. And if you are a discerning reader (which, for the purposes of this small discussion, is one who is not enthralled by self-helping snake oil hucksters) interested in the subject,
James Hynes (Kings of Infinite Space) is another on a long list of novelists who I have been meaning to read based on excellent and well-rendered notices and a scanning of his occasional journalism. Which give good evidence of a keen intelligence, bristling originality, and a mordant (the best kind)
These days geography has devolved to a chauvinism and regional rivalry not quite as virulent as evidenced in the Balkans and former Yugoslavia. Much of this can be laid at the feet of New York City—that cesspool of ambition, striving, and air-kissing. Who coined that slander on the best
Dan Simmons (The Terror) is not only a prolific writer, but his books transverse a multiplicity of genres. His previous opus, The Drood, featured a Charles Dickens charged with defending the reputation of the lost (Arctic) Franklin Expedition from persistent accusations of cannibalism (a story also well handled by Richard
Behind what some readers might consider an audacious, tongue-in-chic title lies a fairly simple thesis about racial taxonomy and historical invention. Historian Nell Irvin Painter’s (Southern History Across the Color Line) new book The History Of White People (WW Norton) argues that “race” is a human contrivance, made malleable
If you are attuned to such things, you might note that occasionally the Academy Awards honor one of the motion-picture industry’s faceless, behind-the-scenes people known as producers with an accolade named after Irving Thalberg. Thalberg is something of a Hollywood legend as he was successful at a young age
Two (excellent) reasons to read Francis Wheen’s at times hilarious, other times scary Strange Days Indeed: The 1970’s: The Golden Age of Paranoia (Public Affairs) are Wheen’s mordant humor and high intelligence, and that he is dead on in his assessment of that historical sinkhole known as
Another phrase I am hearing bandied about with some frequency is “national treasure”—I was just listening to Alison Krauss introduce the Fairfield Four as such, and recently Viking Press’s Paul Slovak referred to Rebecca Solnit as a national treasure. So before the phrase becomes a cliché, let me
The phrase “must read” seems to have afflicted the literary critical machinery—which, if it is a barrier to the usual chirpy prose and even worse smarmy pronouncements, may be a tolerable symptom. In the case of New Yorker writer John McPhee (whose writing career began there in 1964), it
To tell the truth, I find many books on reading far too precious. I mean why do I want to read about reading when I can just read?—which I have been doing with gusto most of my life (except for a brief caesura to partake in the exuberance of
Right about now you may be experiencing a distinct feeling of dread and anxiety as you realize that whatever grasp you had of the fundamental principles of governance as expressed in the hallowed document known as the United States Constitution, which you might have mastered in your long-gone years of
There is in the life of the collector a dialectical tension between the poles of disorder and order. Naturally, his existence is tied to many other things as well: to a very mysterious relationship to ownership, something about which we will have more to say later; also a relationship to
There are some people who believe Alfred Nobel and Joseph Pulitzer are better known for the prizes that bear their names than their places in history. Such an optimistic claim is at the least arguable especially now that there are so many awards that even the bad is celebrated—bad
Like many Americans, despite a nagging sense of better judgment and the guilt that follows from ignoring that judgment, I succumbed to unseen societal forces and purchased one of those new fangled televisions—which, of course, requires some kind of connection to the grid with its multitudinous and maddening choices.
Before the literary landscape became littered with all types of annuals entitled Best American This or That, or simply Best Blah Blah Blah 20__, I would look forward to what I took to be a precious yearly harvest. Happily, there is still one book issued every year that I count
I suppose it was inevitable that once Caleb Carr (The Alienist) wrote a so-called historical fiction using a real historical figure—in that case, Theodore Roosevelt, from when he was the NYC police commissioner—the reductio ad absurdum would be the employment of a president or royal figure hunting vampires
If my recall is correct, I have only spoken to Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side) twice. It seems like more—probably because his books and his journalism (New York Times Magazine or Vanity Fair) are so engaging they seem like natural extensions of our conversations. And given the decent
North African expatriate writer Tahar Ben Jelloun (The Blinding Absence of Light) is well-regarded in his adopted home of France (awarded a Prix Goncourt in 1987) and around the world, having garnered an International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2004 (one impressive aspect of this award is that the long
Although I have soured on professional sports (because as we all know, money changes everything), my memories of various experiences remain vividly cherished (sitting in the Wrigley Field bleachers as teenager). I was still a fan when Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Robert Parrish, and Dennis Johnson not only made the
Though I tend to have difficulty in talking with the concision this space requires about story collections—not that you need to know my problems—in some ways that mirrors the difficulties and perils of short-form fiction. Both practitioners and non-practitioners (novelists) alike point out the rigor and economy demanded
I feel compelled to correct an oversight—a lapse in my steady gaze at the flora and fauna of the current literary terrain. Though some might argue that literature and other parts of life are all taking place in the imminent moment. Attention must be paid to Dave Daley’s
Robert Jackson Bennett’s novel Mr. Shivers (Orbit) made its way into the scrum of books that have taken over the room where I sleep. I am not aware of anything previously written by Bennett or what prompted me to procure the book from his publisher. Or, over this past
In case you are wondering, the pop-up book has been around for centuries, more often referred to as a movable book. There was a wave of popularity in the U.S.A. in the 1930s, but it wasn’t until the ‘60’s that they achieved widespread appeal (mostly for
The late and lamented Boston writer George V. Higgins wrote nearly 30 books, most of them pretty good. But none was better than The Friends of Eddie Coyle (Picador), which is being reissued in a 40th anniversary edition with a new introduction by Dennis Lehane. Set in Boston, Eddie Coyle,
The factual platform for Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America is the appalling reality that the United States “is the world’s greatest jailer.” Though this may be taken as a commendation, let me assure it is a condemnation—
Of our planet’s largest species I understand why the whale receives more attention than the elephant. The Megaptera Novaeangliae, after all, has Herman Melville to once and forever create a metaphor and narrative to enchant homo sapiens while we busily eradicate big mammals from our ecosphere. Pachyderms have no
Having read a number of crime stories by Scandanavian writers (Peter Høeg, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbo), I am wondering what the fuss is about, and moreover what the components of the Scandanavian genre are. Leaving such analytic concerns aside, another writer is joining the rising tide of north-country pulp fiction
Though I am certain a regular diet from the overflowing stream of brain science would result in unconscious mimicry of various symptoms, I have continued to find neurologist Oliver Sacks’s (Musicophilia) case studies of neurological deficits and aberrations provocative and enlightening. As I did British literary consigliere Robert McCrum’
The relationship of the Israelites to capitalism is, of course, the stuff of ethnic mythology and racial slander—Jews are both the sniveling Fagin-like shylocks controlling the world’s economy and the ardent, anti-capitalist, revolutionary zealots. This is also the stuff of contradictions. Good thing Catholic University mentor Jerry Z.
A number of Canadian authors of my acquaintance—Gil Adamson, Wayne Johnstonand, Michael Ondaatje—have sung the praises of Newfoundlandian writer Lisa Moore (Alligator). Now comes her second novel, February (Black Cat), and I am pleased to report I can see that the awards and accolades are justified. Based on
These days bookstore shelves are littered with biographies of defrocked, repentant (and repulsive), scandal-laden politicians, not to mention the sorry batch of whatcha-ma-call-its by their current and former wives, courtesans, and sycophants. Now I find it understandable that many people are fascinated by train wrecks, car accidents, and fires, but
Not to name drop or anything but I had the pleasure of “interviewing” (I don’t call my conversations with writers and the like interviews, but that is not what I am writing about today) Molly Ivins (Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She?) a couple of times and
My temptation to refer to Lee Eisenberg’s (The Number) career as “storied” was tempered by a sudden echo of George Orwell’s famous “Politics and the English Language,” in which he proscribed, “Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in
Growing up with John Wayne in the movies and Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, Maverick, and the classic Have Gun—Will Travel, I have noted with some gloom the decline in popularity of the great American story form known as the “horse opera.” There are
There are artists—musicians and actors—who once they take the stage, their power up there is so compelling that for those moments when they are before you, nothing else matters. Probably the list of such gods is different for everyone (mine includes Thelonious Monk, Astor Piazolla, Abbey Lincoln). But
Hebrew University of Jerusalem historianRobert S. Wistrich‘s new tome, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad (Random House), is a whale of a book, not only because it runs 1200 pages but also because having spent 20 years in its preparation, one could speculate its author
I’d be surprised that if you are here reading the results of my keyboard clattering(s) you haven’t somehow heard about The Melting Season (Riverhead) byJami Attenberg (The Kept Man). From my aerie in suburban Boston I can tell there is a minor groundswell of approval for Attenberg’
According to pollsters, two thirds of the U.S. population support the death penalty—disregarding racial discrepancies or anomalies in its administration. Interestingly, Texas, where attorney David Dow resides and defends death row clients, has executed 449 out of 1,194 since 1976. David Dow has represented over a hundred
Former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins has collaborated with ornithological illustrator par excellence David Allen Sibley to create a sweet little compendium, Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds (Columbia University Press), which is, as the title claims, over a hundred poems illustrated with 60 Sibley’s
Apparently British author Mark Mills's third novel, The Information Officer (Random House) is something of a departure from his bestselling suspense thrillers, Amagansett and The Savage Garden, else I might have made his and their acquaintance sooner. And the credibility of those who blurb(ed) his new title
There was a time in the mid-’90s when I found myself interviewing a long skein of Roddys, Patricks, Colums, and Seamusi (sic)—I reached the scientifically indefensible but understandable conclusion that there was a storytelling gene and these Irish lads were disproportionately gifted with it. Young Trevor Byrne’s
Since 2005, Scottish publisher Canongate has been building The Myths, a series of books matching well-regarded authors from all over the globe—Margaret Atwood, Karen Armstrong, A.S. Byatt, David Grossman, Milton Hatoum, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Tomás Eloy Martínez, Victor Pelevin, Ali Smith, Su Tong, Salley Vickers, Jeanette
In Brigham Young creative writing professorPatrick Madden’s new collection of essays Quotidiana (U of Nebraska Press), we are immediately disabused of equating the ordinary and commonplace with the trivial by the two epigrams that welcome the reader to this bounteous volume of erudition and rumination. Montaigne observes, “From the
When it was first published, who would have expected (least of all Rupert Murdoch, who owns the publishing house) that A People’s History of the United States of America: 1492-Present (Harper Collins) would sell over a million copies. When I spoke with Howard Zinn in 2003, during one of
Now that the dreary and dismal Bolshevik autocracy has been replaced by a colorful and freewheeling capitalist oligarchy, the artifacts and residue of the Soviet years are likely to be viewed more as a de-clawed feline or venom-less viper than echoes of plague years—or, in capitalism’s ultimate triumph,
The recent proliferation of Swedish crime writers should not overshadow the cadre of Irish lads who spin these tales as easily as they draw breaths. I’m talking about John Connelly, Benjamin Black (aka John Banville), and of course, the prolific Ken Bruen. And since London Boulevard (Minotaur) is being
In case anyone is wondering (as they should) how it is that baseball came to be a significant element in a number of Caribbean national cultures—Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Nicaragua, Panama, Venezuela, etc.—University of San Francisco mentor Robert Elias (Baseball and the American Dream, The Deadly Tools
British novelist Robert Harris’s (Imperium) second installment in his trilogy of the late Roman Republic, Conspirata: A Novel of Ancient Rome (Simon & Schuster), begins when Cicero becomes Consul of Rome, a position which he achieved at the end of the first installment of this fictional history. As he
You are probably not as confused about the literary legacy of the great Ralph Ellison as I was—when it was published 10 years ago,I thought Juneteenth was the unfinished novel that Ellison had been struggling with for the 40 years between the publication of his magnum opus (Invisible
Will Self (The Butt), the author of six novels, four story collections, three books of novellas, and five works of nonfiction, is also well known for immoderate behavior fueled by overindulgence in various controlled and uncontrolled substances. Thus his second partnering with Ralph Steadman, the inimitable illustrator and Hunter Thompson
Robert Stone, who some commentators credit with being “one of our greatest living authors”—an assertion with which I would not argue—has a new (his second) story collection, Fun with Problems (Houghton Mifflin). If you know any of Stone’s work (Dog Soldiers, Prime Green), the word “fun” will
Richard Reeves, who is best known as a presidential biographer having written reliable and useful monographs on John Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan (though my favorite of his oeuvre is his 1982 retracing of Alexis de Tocqueville’s American visit, American Journey: Traveling with Tocqueville, an undertaking French celebrity
By now it is undoubtedly apparent that I am a devotee of literary magazines in general—and specifically the handful that have been kind enough to add me to their mailing lists. One of those is Open City, which has published #28, its Winter 2010 issue. Some of the better
Of the incontestable reasons to choose one book, one song, one painting over another is the caprice of personal preference. There being many worthy poets available to the loquacious commentator, in the case of Marie Ponsot—who has over half a century of versifying under her belt—it was the
Whether Frank Gehry ranks as one of the greatest living architects or not, he is certainly one of the most famous—think the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. Now comes a new monograph, Frank Gehry: The Houses (Rizzoli) written by Mildred Friedman,
When I first became acquainted with Jonathan Dee back in the mid-’90s, he had two decent novels under his belt—A Lover of History, The Liberty Campaign—and he was a wisecracking senior editor at the Paris Review, educated at Yale and seemingly destined to write smart “well-crafted” novels.
Of the infamous quartet of apocalyptic equestrians, Famine seems to be the least studied or, perhaps more accurately, the least visible. Economic historian Cormac Ó Gráda’s Famine: A Short History (Princeton University Press) ameliorates that with a fine balance of storytelling and scholarship. There is no question about the
The velocity with which books can be—dare I use the verb “written?”—published these days is astonishing. Barely has a disaster decimated an unfortunate number of humans and their habitat, a scandal titillated millions, or a suspected-pederast superstar passes to his greater, when out pops a, uh, tome. Now
There was a time when people would joke that they read Playboy for the interviews, eschewing any interest in the centerfolds and other decorative editorial. It should be obvious that what you can find on the newsstand is indicative of something about the cultural moment, and Loyola (of Chicago) University
As a lifelong Cubanophile I was naturally attracted to expatriate Cuban Norberto Fuentes’s new fiction The Autobiography of Fidel Castro (WW Norton), excellently translated by Anna Kushner. And as I read, I wondered if the verisimilitude of Castro’s voice and attitude that Fuentes renders in this faux biography
John Ashbery is not one of my favorite poets, but his longevity and prodigious accomplishments put him in that newly minted category of the “too big to fail.” Having won countless major awards (Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Yale Younger Poets Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, etc.
Short fiction is on my mind today. Michigan mortician turned writer/poet Thomas Lynch (The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade), whose family business most certainly has allowed him to view life from a most unusual perspective, has a new opus, Apparition & Late Fictions, his first venture into
One ought not fault Amy Bloom’s admirers for pushing at the limits of sensible praise as one such does in describing Bloom’s new book, Where the God of Love Hangs Out (Random House) as “beautifully astute.” Not exactly a coupling of words that sings. If you have followed
Nick Tosches’s restless curiosity trods a wide literary terrain, and his formidable talents cross boundaries and barriers that might restrain lesser minds. He has written extraordinary (and perhaps definitive) profiles of Jerry Lee Lewis in Hellfire and Dean Martin in Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams
Mississipian Steve Yarbrough’s Prisoners of War is a novel to which I regularly make reference as one that is vastly underappreciated—though now having read four of his novels, I want to suggest that this Southern storyteller deserves a wider readership. And it is possible that his newest effort,
As you probably have read at this site and many other venues, my valued mentor and dear friend Howard Zinn has passed away. It is some small evidence of his enormous energy and commitment to his calling that even as he approached his ninth decade Howard was still crisscrossing the
Photography historian and curator Gail Buckland, whose The Magic Image (with Cecil Beaton) is a seminal history of photography and one of her dozen highly regarded books on photography, adds a new volume to her oeuvre, Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History, 1955 to the Present (Knopf). She
Chicago-born writer John McNally (America’s Report Card, The Book of Ralph, The Ghosts of Chicago), who teaches at Wake Forest University and thankfully has not gone native by embellishing his name, southern-style—as in John Bob or Jack Ed or some such—has published his fourth novel, After the
Last week I had a pleasant and stimulating conversation with Nick Flynn whose new book made mention of and was influenced by Rebecca Solnit’sA Field Guide to Getting Lost. That same day the very valuable web site Tomdistpatch.com published an eloquent and astute view of the current Haiti
That portion of the human community that self-assigns itself the task of reminding all of us the lowly values of the human species and regularly intones and scolds “I told you so” with every disaster, natural or manmade (its obvious we can include that disingenuous popinjay, Pat Robertson) is a
Dismissing the misplaced use of the superlative in the title, this first anthology of European fiction (which proposes to be annual) depends for its credibility on its editor, Sarajevo-born Aleksandar Hemon (The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man, The Lazarus Project). The fact that he has received the imprimatur of the
In baseball lingo, Sam Shepard is at least a four-tool talent—writer, playwright, screenwriter (Paris, Texas), and actor. As an actor Shepard has made valuable contributions to some memorable films (Days of Heaven, The Right Stuff), and he has written over 40 plays (The God of Hell,Buried Child), many
In military and diplomatic circles small wars are operations undertaken under executive authority within certain parameters. In the case of my insights and perambulations for this day, Small Wars (Harper Collins) is the title of British writer/screenwriter Sadie Jones’s (The Outcast) second novel set (mostly) in a British
Don Lattin (Jesus Freaks), who for years covered religion for San Francisco newspapers, has a new book: The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America (Harper Collins). The title pretty much tells you
Writer, poet, and University of Houston mentor Nick Flynn received well-deserved attention and commendations for the first installment of his memoirs, Another Bullshit Night In Suck City, which chronicled a childhood filled with his mother’s suicide and his father’s incarceration and an adulthood where he meets his father
Miami has certainly had a fair share of superlative chroniclers—Joan Didion’s Miami, David Rieff’s Going to Miami: Tourists, Exiles, and Refugees in the New America, among others—while Miami Beach has been celebrated mostly by crime story writers—Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard and Charles Wiliford, and TV
It makes sense that all those pointy-headed intellectuals (a quick search of the Internet and my claim will be confirmed) would flock around George Scialabba and his new anthology of essays and reviews, What Are Intellectuals Good For? (Pressed Wafer Press). If that smallish chorus doesn’t congratulate each other,
Thomas Jefferson Parker has done well in the crime-story world, having written 16 well-received novels. The last two (LA Outlaws, The Renegades) featured LA Sheriff’s Department deputy Charlie Hood and the legend of a 19th-century Mexican outlaw Joaquin Murrieta, aka El Famoso. His newest opus, Iron River (Dutton), also
In the United States, My Lai may still be remembered as the one recognized massacre of the Vietnam war. And the El Mozote (see Mark Danner) carnage may be recalled by a few Americans who were aggrieved by U.S. involvement in Central America in the Reagan years. Now comes
Thomas Mallon (Fellow Travelers) is a delightful writer. In conversation he displays a puckish sensibility, and on the page, ample good humor. With seven novels under his belt (one of my favorites is Henry and Clara, the story of the couple occupying the same opera box as Abraham Lincoln the
In their eye-opening new book Slow Death by Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things (Counterpoint), Canadian environmental activists Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie quote from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring: “For the first time in the history of the world every human being is now subjected to contact
Alabama-born Andre Williams migrated to Chicago with his parents only to be returned to the South when his mother died in 1943. Finding that comeback infelicitous, he made his way back to his steel-mill-worker father in the Windy City, which is where his troubles began—a brief stint of juvenile
The outpouring of concern and aid for the victims of benighted Haiti’s most recent disaster is, I suppose, some measure of comfort for the victims who inhabit one of the poorest geographies on this planet. And it’s better than the rabid utterances of that heinous Christian clergyman Pat
Reading the New York Times editorial pages—Nobel laureate Paul Krugman specifically—one might get the idea that the ruling class (the speculators and the hoaxers, and the mandarins who help them rig the financial system) were being called out for their malicious indifference to the destruction they have caused.
There are, to be sure, still people for whom the textures, subtleties, and nuances of language are of significant if not vital concern. Regular declarations of the decline of all things civilized (occasionally even I have indulged in flagrant sophomoric declinism) may just be generational ululations in the face of,
Tom Piazza, who has written well about New Orleans (his NOLA-based novel, City of Refuge, was the runner-up in last year’s Tournament of Books), is a member of the writing team for The Wire creator David Simon’s imminent HBO series,Treme, set in the Big Easy. (Anyone know
Despite his early books’ preoccupation with vampiric themes (which seem to be all the rage), if you haven’t heard of or read Charlie Huston (The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death), its probably because he hasn’t had a movie made from one of his books. Huston,
Every year end I stew in my own vexation as we’re bombarded by various cultural gatekeepers’ lists of the top/best/sexiest/favorite/hottest/most important books of the year. The meaninglessness of this enterprise occasionally hits critical mass when some media genius becomes enamored with the—for lack
Thankfully, due to the efforts of people like historians Howard Zinn, Sean Willentz, Ray Raphael, and others, the historical revisionism that views American history from the bottom up—so-called people’s history—has escaped the constricting cloisters of the academy and found its way into people’s conversations. Evidence of
Boston, which has variously proclaimed itself the Athens of America and The Hub of the Universe, counts in its history a number of events well known to non-residents, most of which have to do with crime: the Boston Massacre; the Boston Police Strike of 1919 and also the Great Molasses
I may have to amend my recent claim that I am sparing in the use of the superlative ‘amazing’ if I continue to discover books such as Andrew Zuckerman’s amazing Bird (Chronicle Books), a compendium of 200 color photographs of a variety of over 70 avian species. As I
The death of the great caricaturist David Levine reminded me of another great artist, political cartoonist Herb Block (better known as Herblock). Herblock, whose career spanned 70 years and four Pulitzer Prizes, began at the Chicago Daily News and then moved on to the Washington Post (he was also syndicated
Our man in Boston talks to Michael Ondaatje about why he writes novels, how he measures satisfaction, and when fiction can succeed by operating like poetry.
No doubt my fondness for the geography of my youth (Chicago and neighboring Big 10 states) has contributed to my sensitivity to regional chauvinism—who coined the phrase “flyover zone” anyway? Anyway, that fondness extends to the bountiful literature that pours out of that region from the pens of Kent
If he never published another book, music commentator and cultural historian David Hadju most certainly made his bones with Lush Life, his incomparable biography of the great Duke Ellington collaborator, Billy Strayhorn. Of course he has continued to publish valuable books—Positively 4th Street, The Ten-Cent Plague, and now Heroes
Visitors to this (so to speak) space are aware of my fondness for periodical literature and “small” magazines in particular. One I pay attention to is Glimmertrain, a literary quarterly out of Oregon published by two sweet sisters, Linda and Susan. Most of these magazines are similar in content, being
Jim Harrison’s screenplays and almost 30 books, including 15 of fiction (in his own reckoning, he is first and foremost a poet, and also a wonderful food commentator) have firmly fixed him as a shining star in the literary constellation—though I am hard put to understand how he
The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley is a useful and valuable commentator on books and culture, whose good work stands out in an increasingly degraded enterprise (the reviewing of books in some few hundred words for newspapers). Since February 2003, he has been devoting an occasional column to, as he
Last summer I had occasion to comment on caricaturist David Levine’s most recent tome collecting his assorted drawings of American presidents. Sadly, Levine succumbed to prostate cancer over the holidays. Bruce Weber’s precise obituary hit some of the high points for those ignorant of the hand behind the
Given, as they say, the objective conditions besetting our country (need I list them?), it would not be unreasonable to consider whether the United States (of Embarrassment, to quote Eminem) is yet functional, or perhaps to look for a time when it did work. A remarkable new panoramic study, When
As long as I am levitating in the mid-last century, I should note that Alfred Hitchcock’s groundbreaking film Psycho, released in 1960, is the subject of David Thomson’s latest book, The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchock Taught America to Love Murder (Basic Books). Thomson, who is best
I’m having difficulty recalling what William Burroughs (who died in Lawrence, Kan. in 1997) is best known for—being an unabashed (rehabilitated) junkie, being a unrepentant homo (Alan Ginsberg wrote Burroughs was the only real homosexual he knew; I leave it to you to figure out why), having shot
OK, first, my initial impression of cartoonist Hans Rickheit’s new book The Squirrel Machine (Fantagraphics) was one of amazement (a word I don’t bandy about indulgently) and bafflement. I am clear I am not grasping something—not an unpleasant feeling in this circumstance. But Rickheit doesn’t do
Back in 1995 (or ‘96), Jon Lee Anderson’s definitive biography of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevera was published, and within a short time two others joined the Che historiography. Since then there have been some additions but the focus has been on the Cuban revolutionary hero as an icon. And of
You might think that receiving rave endorsements from writers such as Milan Kundera (“one of the greatest novelists of our century”) and John Updike (“a master of verbal burlesque…one of the profoundest late moderns” [whatever that means]) would earn Witold Gombrowicz more recognition. More of a following? T-shirts with
Ten years ago, controversial French intellectual/political philosopher Jean François Revel (How Democracies Perish, The Totalitarian Temptation), who died in 2006,published Last Exit to Utopia: The Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era (Encounter Books) in France (called the Grand Parade there). Newly translated, Revel’s focus, which enraged
They are dropping like flies: Last week Kirkus and Editor & Publisher, this week ID, the venerable design magazine. As a recent TMN headline noted, over four hundred magazines closed in 2009 (including Blender, Giant, Gourmet, Portfolio, Vibe, and Metropolitan Home), which may make Forestry professionals happy, but what about
Pulitzer-winning Brown University history mentor emeritus (The Radicalism of the American Revolution, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787) Gordon Wood has a lucid and elucidating take on history’s popularizers—like David McCullough, Walter Isaackson, Jon Meacheam, Stephen Ambrose—pointing out that it is not quality of prose that
If you visit this space occasionally you might know the high regard I have for journalist Michael Lewis and how moved I was by his story, The Blind Side, which is now an engaging movie starring Sandra Bullock, Quentin Aaron, and Tim Mcgraw. And who is not familiar with Lewis
It stands to reason that the impressive Deborah Willis (Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers 1840 to the Present), MacArthur fellow, artist, photographer, curator, historian, author, and educator who currently chairs the New York University’s photography department would curate/edit an impressive collection of photography that fills
Japanese designer Yohji Yamamoto first called my attention to the distinction between residence and citizenship, pointing out that in France, living in Paris makes you Parisian, not French. I am almost tempted to say the same about residents of New York: New Yorkers first, United States citizens second. Such is
Tennessee born writer Madison Smartt Bell was anointed early, making one of those (silly) Grantalist of young authors to watch. Despite the perils of early celebrity or recognition, Bell has published about a baker’s dozen of novels, the most compelling of which I find to be his Haitian Revolutionary
If you can set aside (any) concerns about poetry in translation then you may rejoice at the publication of The Poetry of Rilke (FSG) edited by Edward Snow, a highly regarded contemporary translator of Rilke. This volume contains over 250 of the influential German poet’s work including complete translations
Will Self continues his preoccupation with anatomical titles—his last book was entitled The Butt, an early work was Cock & Bull—with Liver: A Fictional Organ with a Surface Anatomy of Four Lobes (Bloomsbury). This tome contains four stories interconnected by the state of the various characters’ livers; a
If journalism is, as conventional wisdom holds, the first draft of history, then we are fortunate to have a practitioner such as the New Yorker’sHendrik Hertzberg involved in its creation. Hertzberg’s inestimable CV includes duty as a U.S. Naval officer, service in the White House as chief
Recently one of our esteemed senators (his name escapes me), in talking about our world-leading incarceration rate, offered that having so many people in jail might suggest that Americans are so terrible that we need to lock up so many. There are other explanations, of course, but they are more
Back when I was an impressionable undergraduate (as opposed to being an impressionable graybeard), I was heavily into German author Herman Hesse (Siddhartha), devouring his oeuvre and other big chunks of world culture (I should add certain drugs were experimented with, in addition to those that I inhaled). In Hesse’
Even if you don't live in San Francisco, you will no doubt find out soon enough that Dave Eggers, recently of Where The Wild Things Are fame and continuously of McSweeneys' various enterprises, has published a newspaper. A $16 newspaper called the San Francisco Panorama. Eggers and
This is a confusing time of year, especially in the northern climes where a number of seasonal disorders obtain. How else to explain the odd behavior where people spend money they don’t have on things they don’t need (that they can buy for half the price late in
Octogenerian Phillip Levine, who was born in Detroit of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents and worked in the mind-wrenching, body-breaking auto plants before he took up his poetic calling, has won two National Book Awards and a Pulitzer Prize. His seventeenth and newest collection of poetry, News of The World (Knopf), with
Photographer Sally Mann’s newest monograph Proud Flesh served as the exhibition catalogue (ending October 31) for her recent show at Gagosian Gallery (her Manhattan and Hollywood representative) and is typically well published by Aperture. It’s a slender 64-page volume containing 33 tritone images. The only thing predictable about
If there are non-English speaking writers who have made as big an impact on the literary world as the late departed Chilean, Roberto Bolaño, I am not aware of them. The onslaught of posthumous publications, which include The Savage Detectives and 2666 has fed a large appetite of the growing
The possibility of Simon Mawer’sMan Booker Prize shortlisted novel The Glass Room (Other Press) running off the tracks into banality is immanent in its elements—thankfully, it stays the course, as a superlative story ranging over 60 years (1929-1990) of the 20th century. Set in post-WWI central Europe, Jewish
The notion of style is a matter confounding even the most nimble thinkers—so it is, at the least, convenient to have some guideposts in this tricky terrain. And for the unfortunate and benighted individuals whose calling is writing or whose intention is a clarity of communication in English, one
The unlikely course of historian/activist (or vice versa), Howard Zinn’s subversive (I take that to be a good thing) A People’s History of the United States—first published in 1981 to selling over a million copies and spawning a historiographic cottage industry (there now being a number
There is already a Tabernacle-size choir singing the praises of Attica Locke’s first novel. Among others, the inestimable James Ellroy and my old pal (I mean that in a Facebook kind of way) George Pelecanos extol Black Water Rising (Harper Collins) as a stylish, involving literary thriller with a
This may be a commonplace occurrence—what to do when you read a derogatory review by a writer you admire, of a work by another author you regard highly? It is not common for me, though, as I rarely read reviews. In this case my faith in the author in
Amy Goodman, host of the useful and progressive radio program Democracy Now!, has recently published a collection of articles, Breaking the Sound Barrier (Haymarket Books, edited by Denis Moynihan) with an introduction by favorite whipping boy of right-wing loonies, Bill Moyers. Ms. Goodman is a well-known political skeptic and a
Speaking of Andy Warhol, I suppose it would be missing the point to complain that the person given credit for the prescient observation that everyone would be allotted fifteen minutes of fame had exceeded his own share. Artist, political activist, filmmaker, writer, magazine publisher, philosopher Andy Warhol, who died in
Reportedly Andy Warhol started Interview Magazine when he was refused press credentials to the (inaugural) 1969 New York Film Festival. Though it began its life as a newsprint quarterfold, by the 1980s it became a perfect bound, oversized publication printed on offset stock. And taking advantage of these enhanced production
There must be some explanation for the fact that it wasn't until 2008 that someone had the clarity of thought to anthologize their well-considered selection of the best writing on the internet. Possibly it is that whatever cabal decides these things was finally overwhelmed by the torrent of
Allow me to speculate that if you found your way to this space and stayed on, that you are in no danger of wasting your time reading the latest product of failed vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's ambition--her number-one bestselling whatchamacallit, Going Rogue. Though I think Palin is
As the father of an 11-year-old boy, I am ever vigilant for books and other reading materials with which to influence him. Thus, I find my way into areas of the book world that are slightly off-track for me. Which is how I chanced to discover illustrator/author David A.
Typically, sports biographies fall into two categories of uselessness: takedowns (e.g., A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez) or tell-alls (Jose Canseco's Juiced). However, recently there have been a few that break those predictable, banal parameters--either because of the subject or the story or both. Wil Haygood&
Speaking of the incomparable Gore Vidal, his newest book Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare (Abrams Books) is, if you treasure this sort of thing (which I do), an amazing memoir (more than 500 images) rendered with a variety of artifacts--photographs, letters, manuscripts--from his archives and a great
(Photo by Robert Birnbaum) Old pal and Hunter College mentor Colum McCann , author of Dancer and Zoli won the National Book Award for fiction for his exuberant recent opus Let the Great World Spin. Which at the least means future editions of the book will have shiny stickers disquieting the
J.C. Hallman, editor of an inspired anthology, The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature (Tin House), has already exhibited a commendable ambidexterity with his nonfiction (soon to be a useless descriptor) tome The Devil Is a Gentleman: Exploring America's Religious Fringe, a companionable investigation
Novelist Philip Caputo (Acts of Faith, A Rumor of War) skillfully interweaves the post-9/11 reality of drug cartels and immigrant hordes with the early 20th-century world of the Mexican-U.S. border in a multigenerational tale. The lives of a grieving widower, an illegal Mexican alien, and various narcotraficantes--as well
Though mayhem, war, mass murder, civil unrest, homicidal acts of God (known as natural disasters), famine, plague, and genocide seem to be growth industries, the population of brave men and women (naysayers may say "thrill-seeking adrenaline junkies") who report the news (before service journalism infected a once-honorable calling)
Now that I am more kindly disposed toward The Paris Review--the literary institution founded by George Plimpton and a cohort of his pals back in the wild and crazy 1950s--since they have dropped the hyperbolic "DNA of literature" slogan, I am pleased to pass on the news of
As long as I am banging the drum for short fiction, let me apprise you of the latest addition to the Akashic Books Noir Series: Boston Noir edited by Boston homeboy Dennis Lehane (The Given Day). Since the 2004 publication of Brooklyn Noir, that series has added some 30 titles,
While preparing my chat with American short fiction samurai Tobias Wolff for publication, I realized that though I greatly appreciate short stories I have not been paying sufficient attention to them in this space. Luckily, I have the 2009 edition of The Best American Short Stories at hand. As you
In Boston the gem known as the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum once hosted the Eye of the Beholder, artist-in-residencies that invited diverse creators such as children's book illustrator Ashley Bryan, performance artist Lee Ming Wei, installation artist Joan Bankemper, photographer Abelardo Morell, and author Sandra Cisneros to spend
Let's face it, the Jews have long been a troublesome people for the rest of the planet. Of course, that topic or virtually anything to do with Jews is a minefield of issues especially since the Jews control the media and the banks and a speck of dust
Our man in Boston talks to Tobias Wolff about the art of revision, how writing programs are good for training skilled readers, and why Robert Olen Butler still signs stock.
Film (theatrical and television) director Robert Altman, auteur of some 40 movies (you know what I mean, the stuff that, during what may one day be referred to as America's Golden Age, was shown on very big screens in halls that held hundreds of people) was unarguably a
Though I grew up in Chicago reading the Sun-Times and the Daily News from a precociously early age (and thus claim a historical interest), I haven't decided yet whether the fulminating about the rapidly thinning forest of daily newspapers is misguided nostalgia, crass self-interest (yes, there is also
One of the more poignant scenes in Bernardo Bertolucci's film The Conformist (based on the Alberto Moravia novel of the same name) has the character Marcello Clerici (Jean-Louis Trintignant) recalling his father's account of living in Munich in 1923 and encountering a diminutive, mustachioed man who
Amongst the incalculably lengthy list of authors who have not received their due (also an incalculable notion) you will find, with regularity, the name of Padgett Powell. Powell (Edisto), who teaches at the University of Florida and has collected plaudits from Ian Frazier and Barry Hannah to Saul Bellow, has
For 25 years Lou Manfredo was a functionary in the Brooklyn courts and it is clear the knowledge and culture he internalized there is ably and compellingly exhibited in his maiden effort as a crime novelist in Rizzo's War (Minotaur Books). Especially noteworthy is his success in making
At almost any given moment one may stroll the streets of urban America (unfortunately, I can't speak for the hinterlands) and observe what appear to be human beings perambulating (the boulevards) while staring at their palms. This, you may guess, is the voodoo mojo of the smartphone in
Po Bronson first came to my attention with his 1995 lampoon of the insular world of bond-trading, Bombardiers. My next awareness of him came in a conversation with novelist and Iowa Writers' Workshop mentor Ethan Canin, who spoke highly of Bronson and, if memory serves well, suggested Bronson was
Inexplicably, 27 years after passing to his glory, there are only a handful of biographies of the great American jazz pianist and composer Thelonious Monk. To paraphrase an obscure rhythm and blues tune, Monk was an original original who ranks with John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis
Saying someone needs no introduction used to have some validity--before life in the post-industrial world went all 365/24/7 on us. Now the exponential explosion of sense-wracking gossip, trivia, ED adverts, and religious poppycock renders that gesture anachronistic. Nonetheless I would love to think that Kurt Vonnegut (Cat'
New York City may be the American megalopolis hated by outlanders and flyover-zone residents (in part because apparently that's where that unfortunate rubric originated), but L.A. seems to draw more negative commentary. Artists like Jack Kerouac and Alejandro Jodorowsky have called it "the loneliest city on
News of--one of the trade magazines referred to him as "legendary"; I can imagine the chuckle he got from that--bookseller Vincent McCaffrey's foray into fiction with his novel Hound got me thinking back to the aftershock of the closing of his legendary Back Bay Boston book
Having studied with Gary Winogrand and been critically well-regarded (by Susan Sontag, among others), photographer Mitch Epstein early eschewed the artsy conceit of black-and-white photography to experiment with and perfect his use of color. This concentration is first in evidence in his early works and books created from his travels
One wonders what it would take to shock the American (or any public) to action with revelations of wrongdoing, corruption, or human and animal abuse as the muckrakers of a long-bygone era were able. Or if it is any longer possible. (For example, shouldn't the relatively small number
Forgive my temporary amnesia but I cannot recall what caused the heightened awareness of Latin American literature resulting in the so-called Latin American Boom of the '60s and '70s (both the rubric and the fact attached to it)--the conventional wisdom holding that it was the confluence of
While I have every confidence that all manner and mode of ideas and activities now labeled with the ungainly appellation "old school" will not suffer the fate of road apples (which is to dry up and become dust in the wind), I do fear that, for example, the
It is not uncommon for doctors (Ethan Canin, Daniel Mason), lawyers (Scott Thurow, John Grisham, Barry Reed), and television anchors (Jim Lehrer, Tom Brokaw) to venture into the novel writing game. One might think it would be a more common occurrence but as far as I know only bookseller Sonny
Ana Menéndez, (Loving Che) a former columnist/reporter for the Miami Herald has written, variously, about Cuba, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Istanbul, and India, her base for three years. With her new opus, The Last War (HarperCollins), she has authored two novels (in addition to a story collection). Set in Istanbul, The
Growing up in Chicago in the '50s and '60s, I was not aware of this sprawling prairie city's commitment to racial segregation until Martin Luther King came to the city and led marches for fair (desegregated) housing in Caucasian neighborhoods. For such temerity, the good doctor
Ginnah Howard (Rope & Bone) manages to make the harrowing and bitter world of a shattered family (suicide of the father and one brother and the perennial cycle of substance abuse and various rehabilitations of the remaining brother) convincingly interesting. Set in upstate New York, the story alternates between Mark--the
The Scott Dadich-designed Periodical Photographs (Aperture) by award-winning editorial photographer Dan Winters collects and features 90 full-color images (some of which have appeared in New York, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and the New York Times Magazine), including such diverse subjects as Gwyneth Paltrow, Denzel Washington, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bono, Eminem, Willie Nelson,
If you need a reminder of how degraded, sycophantic, lazy, smug, boring, and predictable contemporary journalism has become, San Francisco State University mentor Peter Richardson's (American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams) A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed
The Kennedy crime family seems to have been the first to come up with the bright idea to import its ill-gotten (remember patriarch Joe was, among other things, a bootlegger) gains into legitimate and semi-legitimate (movies and later, politics) businesses. Thus, the crimes associated with the Kennedys' wealth have,
Having recently noted Rebecca Solnit's encouraging study of community responses to disasters (like Hurricane Katrina), I also availed myself of an opportunity to chat with Tracy Kidder (Mountains Beyond Mountains), whose new book, Strength in What Remains (Random House), vividly and honestly chronicles the truly extraordinary ordeal of
Since I don't go out much I can't tell if there is a lot of hoopla around the publication of the Greil Marcus and Werner Sollors-edited A New Literary History of America (Harvard University Press) --although I do take exception to a use of "America&
Given the prodigious and intense scholarship devoted to all manner of subjects--central and tangential--to the Holocaust (or "Shoah" as some Jews prefer to call it), it is an encouraging sign that new information or new ways of looking at what we know are still being unearthed. In The
As an expatriate Chicagoan trapped in the cosmic psyche experiment of the East Coast, I am loathe to appreciate the ongoing, relentless celebration of New York City as the center of the universe (or to extend Jim Harrison's acute appraisal, the ultimate center of ambition). Happily, German illustrator
To begin with, Peter Dexter (Train), author of the award-winning and memorable novel Paris Trout (and a fistful of other excellent novels), has penned the funniest dust-jacket biography that I can remember (a creative opportunity most authors eschew): Pete Dexter began his working life with a U.S. Post Office
Not exactly a household name (except in certain effete and cultivated households) thespian (his credits include over a hundred movie and TV appearances--My Dinner With Andre, Shadows and Fog, Toy Story, The Princess Bride, Life on Mars among them) playwright (The Designated Mourner and The Fever) Wallace Shawn, scion of
There are some writers--for me, Rick Russo, Jim Harrison, Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos, Amy Bloom, to name a few--for whom the matter at hand is not whether but rather how much I will like their latest creation. To be honest in Russo's (Bridge of Sighs, Empire Falls) case,
Looking at Rebecca Solnit's body of published work--Hope in the Dark, River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Wanderlust: A History of Walking, and As Eve Said to the Serpent: On Landscape, Gender, and Art--makes obvious her penchant for
By now if you have any interest in American history or Abraham Lincoln, you are aware that 2009 marks the 200th anniversary of his birth, and naturally there is a gush of books adding to the already voluminous Lincoln bibliography. I have already dealt with a few of these tomes
If there is a blacker mark of shame on the history of American governance (the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans notwithstanding), I am open to considering it. (Local so-called riots--Tulsa, Rosewood--don't qualify as they did not have federal government complicity.) The fact that all
There are probably a few handfuls of writers who fall into the unfortunate category of being designated writers' writers. I say unfortunate because it suggests an explanation for a lack of wide(r) recognition--though ostensibly it is meant as something positive. The late FrederickBusch seemed to be pigeonholed in
I suppose if there were many American readers who were interested in the harrowing and haunting recollections of Haifa Zangana, an exiled Iraqi patriot and lifelong (since the '70s) resistance fighter, the tone and palette of U.S. involvement in Iraq and the Middle East might have taken a
Naturally, my recent roundup of books on Cuba missed a couple of important contributions to that magical island nation's bibliography. Alongside Ned Sublette's seminal Cuba and Its Music: From the First Drums to the Mambo, Cuban saxophonist-turned-historian Leonardo Acosta's Cubano Be Cubano Bop: One
Personally, the realization that much of what is hailed as fashion is actually fecal matter came as I noticed that recent sunglasses design (always a bellwether accessory) made people's visages resemble large houseflies. That and the incessant chirping of various augmented mutant rodents at the de rigueur red
To say the dreary miasma of orthodox socialism was additionally burdened with the psychotic tyranny of Josef "Man of Steel" Stalin cannot adequately represent the terrors and horrors of the Stalinist regime. Martin Amis, in his controversial Koba the Dread, drums up Robert Conquest's heuristic device
Former Boston Globe and Pulitzer Prize-winning scribe Fred Kaplan (who also writes for Slate) can be forgiven for the hyperbolic claim of the subtitle in 1959: The Year Everything Changed (Wiley), as there are at least two other books that pretty much claim the same thing--and, after all, overheated rhetoric
With The Writer's Notebook: Craft Essays From Tin House edited by Lee Montgomery, literary magazine Tin House culls (with a few original exceptions) its Summer Writers Workshop and offers up 17 essays by the likes of Dorothy Allison, Jim Shepard, Aimee Bender, Rick Bass, Margot Livesey, Antonya Nelson,
The mantle of unacknowledgement falls on many shoulders beyond the poetic brotherhood (and sisterhood): librarians, primary school teachers, booksellers, and so forth. The many small (this description apparently refers to circulation size) magazines and their preternaturally dedicated staffs existing across the U.S. and the known world are overqualified for
Photography has changed dramatically in the past 20 years--beyond the mutations caused by digital technology. In the '80s, advertising led by fashion and lifestyle products began to look for a more editorial feel and impact, and so portraiture broke out of a formalist straightjacket. This was also true of
It was not too long ago (that's in historical time, not 24/7 time) that comics, along with blue jeans and rock and roll, were somehow considered--by anxious parents and the usual whack jobs--to be contributors to juvenile delinquency. It was just one of the great panics of
Shamefully, I must confess that while full of springtime ambition and whatever else is in that season that spurs us to grasp beyond our reach, I had intended to assemble a gaggle of poetry titles coincident with National Poetry Month--though that commemoration has about as much weight as National Lawn
As usual, it is the best of times and the worst of times, which is as good a time as any to spin a tale of two novels. Ron Carlson, a masterful writer of a number of story collections and books, has published The Signal (Viking), a compact, 200-page novel
OK, unlike everyone else in my generation, I was not at Woodstock. (Then and now, not exactly my idea of fun.) But as this week marks the 40th anniversary of the legendary cultural milestone, you will be carpet-bombed with endless blather and footage--unless you are sequestered in Guantánamo. Michael Lang,
Californian Richard Lange (Dead Boys) has written a taut, sure-footed walk on L.A.'s wild side with This Wicked World (Little, Brown)--certainly not of the city of angels and movie stars, but the metropolis of hopeful and exploited immigrants, low-life hustlers, psychos, and all stripes of humanity
Meryl Streep's uncanny film portrayal of Julia Child in Julie & Julia (based on Julie Powell's Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen and Child's My Life in France) has now occasioned Michael Pollan's New York Times Magazine
Before you are deluged with the press release parroting of what I hope are well-meaning literary journalists rushing to present you with the lists of forthcoming books for the fall season (as if you have come close to reading much of the last season's list), let me offer
Though well represented in print, most recently with Jay Parini's edit of The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal, the oracular Vidal seems glaringly overlooked by the buzzing, blooming noise/newsmakers bleating for our attention. Which makes his 2009 conversation with Parini (Vidal's designated literary executor) all
Given the current overheated media climate, it would be normal to call Nicholson Baker's very thoughtful piece on the Kindle a takedown or bashing--which would be a disservice to journalism (at least that variety still practiced by temperate and diligent reporters), Nick Baker, and even to the subject
Merce Cunningham's recent death at the age of 90 reminded me that--except for the New York Times and colonial outposts of New Yorkers--the passing of nonagenarians (save Walter Cronkite) of great accomplishment rarely receives much attention in our brave new 24/7 world. Arthur Miller, the great 20th
Texas writer James Lee Burke, author of 30 or so books (his Dave Robicheaux novels no doubt being the most well-known), and winner of two Edgar Awards for best crime novel of the year, likes to tell the story of submitting his novel The Lost Get-Back Boogie 111 times over
My recent roundup of books on Cuba made no claims for completeness--nonetheless I think it a glaring omission not having included University of Alabama history mentor Howard Jones's vital monograph, The Bay of Pigs. Included in a series from Oxford University Press called "Pivotal Moments in American
Our man in Boston chats with author Gil Adamson about Toronto's literary mafia, the fact-checking that plagues novelists, and the difficulty of listing 10 Canadian writers.
If you are paying attention to the ideas I am trying to express here (I hope they qualify as ideas, and I thank you if you are paying attention), my vexation at the declining attention paid to the study of history is a regular sore spot. I lay the fault
If it were possible to embarrass corporations such as Amazon, the recent snafu over Amazon's recall (that would be the kind word for it) of Kindle versions of George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm should be at least an embarrassment--though litigation would seem a more appropriate
The relationship of writers to the Hollywood dream machine has been extensively documented--the Coen Brothers' Barton Fink even gave us a spoof of poor William Faulkner's stint writing for the movies. In the past few years, Jim Harrison has mused on screenwriting in his memoir Off to
If you have read novelist John Crowley's fiction (Endless Things and Little, Big), his new opus may come as something of a surprise--as his penchant is for what some refer to as slipstream or interstitial fiction. Four Freedoms (William Morrow) is set in the early years of World
Tasmanian (go ahead, tell me you know where Tasmania is) novelist Richard Flanagan (Gould's Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist [which he dedicated to the beleaguered and persecuted Australian Muslim convert David Hicks]) joins a growing and welcome list of novels that have the illustrious 19th century English
The Cultivated Life (Rizzoli), a delightful anthology written and illustrated by Jean-Philippe Delhomme, is a thin tome containing more than 100 of the ubiquitous French illustrator's works. As is the case with many visual artists co-opted by various luxury brands, you will no doubt recognize the style and
At some point, someone will probably fabricate one of those pop-sociology books about the generation that is averse to reading instruction manuals: The Dummies' Guide to Dummies. (Who is buying all those self-help books and keeping windbags like Tony Roberts in silk?) As I belong to that set and
National Book Award-winning writer Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) occupies an anomalous place in the melee that passes for the American literary culture. Viewed as a prickly sort and outsider (he lives in Northern Idaho and passed on attendance to the N.B.A. awards ceremony), Johnson's Jesus&
Stories attach themselves to all manner of things, and occasionally those stories rise to some level of perpetuity. I wish I had a dramatic story for how I came to read Nick Antosca's disturbing, riveting, and eerie second novel, Midnight Picnic (Word Riot Press). For all I know,
I actually lived through and participated in the era unimaginatively referred to as the Sixties--there was war and drugs and madness and dancing in the streets, assassinations and a presidential resignation and Woodstock and Watts, the Black Panthers, the White Panthers, the Grey Panthers, and, well, you know, a lot
I first became aware of Uruguayan writer, activist, and dog loverEduardo Galeano about 20 years ago through Lawrence Weschler's investigations of the amnesty movements in Brazil and Argentina during their post-military dictatorship years (Weschler's work culminated in his book, A Miracle, A Universe: Settling Accounts With
Add the names of Bill Mauldin and Jules Feiffer to Ed Sorel, Seymour Chwast, and David Levine, and this group of masters will give you a Mount Rushmore of American illustration for the latter half of the 20th century and onward. I have already noted Mauldin's two volume
Canadian poet and occasional novelist Anne Michaels, whose first novel, Fugitive Pieces, was internationally lauded and awarded, returns some 12 years later with a sophomore effort every bit as engaging. The Winter Vault (Knopf) is brimming with gorgeous prose and imagery—frequently cited as an example of, uh, “lyric fiction”
Accepting writing as one’s profession allows one to indulge all manner of aberrant and/or unorthodox behavior (sometimes to or with other writers). Along with the expected impecuniosities, the great unwashed associate peculiarity with affection for the written word. Now this is not a wild habit in the scheme
There was a time in the 1990s when turning to the New York Observer offered amusing and enlightening relief from the prevalence of so-called service journalism in the form of Michael M. Thomas and his column. (Thomas incisively pointed out that the new generation of journalists felt that reporting was
In the last decade of the 20th century, Vanity Fair—in what no doubt was a well-intended nod to the rising tide of Spanish-language and Latino literature—fabricated “Las Girlfriends,” a group portrait of authors Julia Alvarez, Ana Castillo, Denise Chavez, and Sandra Cisneros. (I have since forgotten—probably with
You know a good chunk of time has passed when what was once viewed as aberrant achieves trend status and becomes simply idiosyncratic. For much of my life I have been fascinated by Cuba: the music, the politics, the food, the literature—pretty much everything. By the late 20th century,
David Foster Wallace’s suicide last autumn sent shockwaves through the literary world unleashing a torrent of verbiage, opinionizing, and hand wringing—it seemed as if anyone who ever read a book weighed in on the sorrow, D.F.W.’s legacy, or somesuch. How to explain the reaction? Wallace’
Octogenarian writer Elmore (“Dutch”) Leonard has published more than 40 books, mostly novels, and about half of which have been made into movies—none more credibly executed then Steven Soderbergh’s iteration of Out of Sight (1998) starring George Clooney as bank robber Jack Foley and Jennifer Lopez as U.
Crime story writer Michael Connelly’s latest offering brings back cop beat reporter Jack McEvoy from what I consider the finest of his 20 novels, The Poet, a standalone story that leaves aside Connelly’s long-running L.A. homicide detective Harry Bosch series—though the lethal serial killer the Poet
Considering the marginal contribution literary fiction makes to the commercial publishing engine’s so-called bottom line, I am ever astounded so many literary biographies, writers’ memoirs, and authors’ correspondences are published. In the fullness of time I expect to talk about some recent literary marginalia, but in the meantime I
An April 1999 event at a Colorado high school should have changed the way Americans view childhood and child rearing. It did for me. As the parent of a young boy I can assure you that the harrowing and tragic events at Columbine High School, where two teenage students attempted
Alex Rodriguez stopped being interesting to me about the time he went from the Seattle Mariners—where he played with Junior Griffey—to Texas, where he was handed 200 million dollars to play baseball. Come to think of it, major-league baseball became much less interesting to me at about the
(Photo by Robert Birnbaum) One of the dependable touchstones of publishing is that every few years that rickety engine will cough out a book by maestro George Pelecanos (and a few others). Funnily enough, Pelecanos, author of 17 novels and editor of a super crime story collection (The Best American
While I am not a big fan of Oprah Winfrey, I don’t hold it against any writer that Oprah (who is not a tasteless dummy) may have brought them the immense commercial benefits that seem to accrue from her majestic anointment(s). Apparently, Jane Hamilton (A Map of the
Despite something approximating my best efforts, many venues for book information continue to propagate the silly notion that there is such a thing as summer reading. This is such a widespread contagion—most in evidence by the locust-like droning of lists purporting to contain summer books—that if there was
As a young American, I was never enamored of the so-called horse operas that populated the airwaves in the ‘50s and ‘60s: Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Cisco Kid, Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Rifleman, Bonanza, (Maverick and Have Gun—Will Travel excepted). What these stories had in common was the demonization
English writer Philip Kerr, who has authored 19 novels (including some children’s books) and found himself on Granta’s second “Best of Young British Novelists” list in 1993 (along with Louis de Bernières, A.L. Kennedy, Will Self, and Kazuo Ishiguro), may be most well known for what has
Photographer Philippe Halsman snapped some of the planet’s most famous faces—Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Frank Sinatra, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Bob Hope, and countless others—and his portraits adorned more than 100 Life covers, when the magazine was a weekly publication and a real media force.
I haven’t read T. Jefferson Parker’s books for a while, though when I spoke with him in the mid-’90s I was favorably impressed with his writing. Along with Michael Connelly, Thomas Perry, Don Winslow, and Robert Ferrigno, Parker is one of a handful of crime writers who
There is much anecdotal evidence to support the view that despite America’s vast riches (yes, even now) we are still in thrall to a lifeboat mentality. On the other hand, the nongovernmental response to disasters such as Katrina, the tsunami, and numerous earthquakes are a sign, as Mark Twain
Our man in Boston talks with novelist Joseph O'Connor about writing historical fiction, the role of the Irish in the American Civil War, and the trouble of trilogies.
I recently noted British bad-boy photographer Martin Parr’s slip-cased, two-volume Parrworld:Objects and Postcards, the latter volume of which displayed Parr’s 5,000-strong postcard collection. Now comes a (relatively) new Walker Evans book—Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard by Jeff Rosenheim (Steidl)—and an exhibition of Evans’
Like Art Spiegelman, I have an aversion to the rubric “graphic novel.” Golden Globe-winning Israeli film Waltz With Bashir was first an animated film and now also exists as a 128-page book (Metropolitan Books)—novel, comic book—do you care? In both iterations it is a powerful story based on
In the vast wasteland known as television, the gap between the Olympian heights of shows such as The Wire and the subterranean depths of reality TV and that ode to puerility, 24, is occasionally filled by brief flashes of inspiration (usually accidental): The Practice, Grey’s Anatomy, The Closer, and
As I was reading and immensely enjoying Through Black Spruce (Viking), Canadian author Joseph Boyden’s newest opus, I came to the realization that I never read something by a Canadian writer that I didn’t find pleasing. That is a topic for another time, but Through Black Spruce reminded
I view those books concerned with writers’ love lives and how that affected their work at large with at least detachment and perhaps even skepticism—though unquestionably I respect the efforts in writing and getting a book published. In Faulkner and Love: The Women Who Shaped His Art (Yale University
The Manny Ramirez story seems to have a wider audience than just local baseball chatter, and may even go off track and venture into the quagmire known as human relations. Living in the belly of the beast—the heavily monetized snake-oil brand known as Red Sox Nation—I have been
Assuming you have not been totally co-opted and reduced to an incidental node in the circuitry of the faceless conspiracy known as the WWW, it’s possible you may have some feeling for the idea of a personal library. You know, real books, on some semblance of shelving or containment,
Some years ago in a conversation with the then-ebullient Thisbe Nissen, a recent spawn of the famous (Iowa) Writers’ Workshop, I asked—as I am occasionally prone to do—if there was a writer I should look out for. Her answer was Wake Forest mentor John McNally. McNally (The Book
Except for movie and music concert art of the late ’60s (JZ Lynch, R. Crumb, Skip Williamson), posters have not occupied as prominent a place in American culture as in the rest of what is called western civilization—for some reason, Puerto Rico has refined poster art and reproduction to
No doubt in the publishing world there is a lingering hope that books specific in topic—bread-baking, quilting, knitting, bird-watching—have application to the broader project of the life well-lived—as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which is, of course, a most un-Zen-like precept. Things are what
Thomas Perry’s The Butcher’s Boy and Metzger’s Dog are two of the best books of whatever niche/genre in which you place Perry’s fiction. He is also known for a best-selling series devoted to Jane Whitfield, a woman of Native American ancestry whose talents and specialty
Luckily, only a quartet of so-called small (literary) magazines have chosen to subscribe me. Any more and I am certain I would have to start making ruthless and painful decisions about my reading queue. I see such magazines as the victory gardens, boutique vintners, and truck farms of America’s
To commemorate the Jan. 21 birthday of Thomas Paine (Common Sense, The Rights of Man), the Center for Inquiry annually hosts the Thomas Paine Memorial Lecture. Paine has languished outside the pantheon of American demigods and the reverential and hagiographic biblio-avalanche that celebrates the white men known as the Founding
A few American writers have captured the desolation and despair of the areas in America afflicted by ravages of post-industrial decline—Russell Banks and Richard Russo come to mind. Now comes Philipp Meyer’s debut novel American Rust (Spiegel & Grau), set in a distressed rust-belt town near Pittsburgh, and
Most of my adult life—what I will in my memoir (in progress) call “The Post-Graduate Years," I have, when given the opportunity, railed against the poor or lack of attention with which Americans regard their history. Except for a small number of re-enacters, scholars, and so-called buffs (most
Though I hold no fondness for softcover/paperback books, I am enthralled by so-called pocket books, the dimensions of which are approximately four inches by seven inches. Perhaps I have been mesmerized by the mother of all such books, Quotations From Chairman Mao Zedong or The Little Red Book, which
How does one wake up every day with a strong imperative to look for some strand of meaning from the frayed reality that relentlessly presents itself to our punch-drunk (collective and perhaps individual) consciousnesses? Wait, don’t answer that. My guess: by partially fashioning one’s own narrative with usable
How I became a literary omnivore remains as much a mystery to me as having the same predilections in the musical realm—I have always gravitated to music and musicians whose influences were an ever-expansive wellspring of sounds and composers: Charles Mingus, early Frank Zappa, Harry Partch, Tom Zé, and
These days Africa seems to be the epicenter of misery stories—if not the planet’s epicenter of misery. Which makes Malawi-born (kudos if you can point to Malawi on a map) conceptual artist Samson Kambalu’s memoir, The Jive Talker: An Artist’s Genesis (Free Press), a literary refreshment.
[Photo by Robert Birnbaum] Inclement weather may have scuttled my chat this week with multifaceted writer Lawrence Weschler, but I want to take the opportunity to bang the drum loudly about the republication and updating of his early works on Robert Irwin and David Hockney, as well as the rest
These days I must admit a preoccupation with matters of history and gloomy concerns about our country’s governance. Despite being a failed scholar of history—as in, lacking the cojones to take on a doctoral program—I still pay attention to historiography and accessible scholarship. I have in the
In a wide-ranging discussion, our man in Boston talks with novelist and skeptic James Howard Kunstler about life as it is, life as it could be, and life as we may encounter.
In this current wave of hopeful historiocity (sic) comes a fine new book for children of all ages that splendidly arrays American history. The National Children’s Book and Literary Alliance conceived and curated Our White House: Looking In Looking Out (Candlewick Press), a collection of essays, personal accounts, historical
When Barack Obama mentioned 106-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper in his inspiring victory speech, he utilized a device (if I can call it that) suggesting the immediacy of history through the narrative lens of a very old person/survivor—which has been employed to excellent use in a number of outstanding
It makes good sport to speculate on the men and women worthy of placement in the pantheon of world historical figures. In the 18th century and beyond, Swiss-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author of The Social Contract, has been awarded such stature—the French actually exhumed his body from Jean-Jacques’s chosen
Sometime in the mid-’90s, in a conversation with British writer William Boyd, I offhandedly asked if he wanted to name a writer he thought deserving of wider recognition. “Justin Cartwright,” was his answer. I, with great singleness of purpose, went to Avenue Victor Hugo Bookshop (sadly, the brick-and-mortar shop
Possibly the next fad in literature will see an upswing of publishing Scandinavian crime-story writers in the U.S.A. Stieg Larsson (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) has been hugely successful; Peter Høeg has a following here; and now Jo Nesbø (The Red Breast) reaches these shores with Nemesis
Sometime last year, I commended the George Pelecanos-edited The Best American Mystery Stories 2008, which included a riveting story by Floridian Kyle Minor, “A Day Meant to Do Less.” It turns out Dandy Dan Willett’s fledgling imprint Dzanc Books is publishing Minor’s debut collection, In the Devil’s
Afghanistan, frequently referred to as the burial ground of empires or somesuch, may well turn out to be Barack Obama’s pivot point to a second term—and the United States’s long downward spiral into oblivion. Based on his campaign assertions, he would seem be continuing the naïve view
The holiday (publishing) hiatus did not much change my reading habits other than two glorious days spent in total horizontal bibliophilic repose. I was able to read Louisianan writer Tim Gautreaux’s new opus, The Missing (Knopf), which doesn’t quite rise to the level of his gripping The Clearing,
Annie Leibovitz is arguably the best-known photographer in the U.S.A. (Who else? Richard Avedon? Herb Ritts? Ron Gallela?) Based on years of service at hippie-qua-boomer journal Rolling Stone, where she shot 142 covers, and her ongoing work at effete boomer glossy Vanity Fair, as well as other such
One might wonder why three Mormon historians—Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glen M. Leonard—chose to investigate an unarguably black mark on the Mormon religion and published those results, some 150 years after the fact. Whatever the reason, Massacre at Mountain Meadows (Oxford University Press) is an
Over Spanish painter Joan Miró’s (1893-1983) long and storied career he spent more than a decade in aggressive experimentation with material, media, and subjects--"I want to assassinate painting”—and it is the transformative period from 1927 to 1937 that is the focus of an exhibition at New
Before I picked up Vanity Fair’s Michael Wolff’s (Autumn of the Moguls) new opus, The Man Who Owns the News: Inside the Secret World of Rupert Murdoch (Broadway Books), I was dubious about wanting to spend untold hours finding out about the “secret” world of short-fingered vulgarian Murdoch.
Some months ago I received an anthology from a heretofore unknown (to me) publisher, Bellevue Literary Press. Apparently I have been blessed to remain on their mailing list, as I have continued to receive their offerings. Of late I am a fortunate recipient of Iowa Writer’s Workshop graduate Paul
I am going to risk casting a pall of pedantry on this breezy corner of literary terrain and mention that late last millennium the term “meta” floundered onto the periphery of pop culture, even appearing in a space-filling essay in the New York Times Book Review. Apparently English majors did
If I had not spoken with expatriate (he lives in Vienna) American writer Jonathan Carroll a few years back, I might be surprised that his online biography is bilingual (English-Polish); nor does it surprise me that, though he has authored nearly 20 well-received novels, he has managed to remain relatively
A handsome volume by Columbia College (Chicago) mentor and Nelson Algren-award-winning writer Joe Meno (Hairstyles of the Damned), Demons in the Spring (Akashic Books) anthologizes 20 pieces of short fiction, some never previously published and each illustrated by artists, including Charles Burns, Ivan Brunetti, Archer Prewitt, Jay Ryan, and Cody
Even before the grand finale of the 2008 election campaign, new books on the only other president elected from the great state of Illinois, Abraham Lincoln, were much in evidence in reviews and bookstores. No surprise there, as somewhere in his forthcoming tome, Angels and Ages: A Short Book About
Poetry As Insurgent Art (New Directions), a slender (90 pages), pocket-sized, clothbound volume with the title embossed on the black coverboard is a work in progress (the earliest version transcribed from a KPFA radio broadcast in the late ‘50s) by octogenarian poet patriarch LawrenceFerlinghetti. Ferlinghetti has been amending and publishing
As an expatriate Chicagoan living in benighted eastern Massachusetts, I can attest to the geographical affliction prevalent in these and other parts of the East Coast that are apparently blind and ignorant of the United States west of Philadelphia—this year being an exception given the importance of funny sounding
I was searching for video of one of my last visits to Chicago’s Grant Park; that trip took place in August 1968, when Sen. Eugene McCarthy walked across the street from the Conrad Hilton Hotel and addressed the gathered crowd as “the United States government-in-exile.” Though I couldn’t
Though he is the author of more than 20 worthy tomes that range over a broad literary landscape—novels, essays, biographies, histories—eagle-eyed cinephile DavidThomson is likely best known for a number of editions of the incomparable and valuable A Biographical Dictionary of Film and recently The New Biographical Dictionary
Given the titans residing in the pantheon of aphorists—Oscar Wilde, Karl Kraus, G.K. Chesterton, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Dorothy Parker, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce—it takes a writer of high self-regard or no sense of history to attempt a book of aphorisms. Or like poet, editor, musician, and Scotsman Don
The decision by the Christian Science Monitor to no longer print a hard-copy version got me to thinking about my reading habits vis-à-vis that great American news appliance, the daily newspaper—and I was pushed into a state of befuddlement, realizing I had not picked up a piece of newsprint
In the end, it is difficult to view perennial Countdown “Worst Person in the World” candidate and Fox Network blabbermouth Bill O’Reilly as anything other than a blustering clown with a deep streak of the bully in him. Why then, you ask, have I engaged in the selfless service
[Photo by Robert Birnbaum] Having grown up in Chicago I had the great good fortune to be introduced to Studs Terkel’s work early on—as well as the other Chicago wonders, all hidden in plain sight from the rest of America—Mike Royko, Ernie Banks, Curtis Mayfield, Sid McCoy,
The venerable and imaginative Yale University Press, which publishes a cornucopia of wonderful titles each year, including many groundbreaking art tomes (or so-called “coffee-table books”), has commissioned a series of monographs under the rubric Icons of America, of which—to give you a sense of its parameters—King’s Dream
Controversial British photographer and Magnum member Martin Parr, who was once derided by Magnum founder and photographic titan Henri Cartier-Bresson as “from another planet,” is also known as a collector and historian of photography books—he numbers his collection at around 7,000 volumes—hence the two volumes of The
I don’t know about others (though the common default explanation is some variation of attention deficit) but my reading habits have seemingly transformed into something unrecognizable to the Me of just a few years ago—perhaps even before the post-millennial chattering class preoccupation with announcing and sifting through the
Though never far from my thoughts, the Central American nation of Nicaragua, to which I traveled in 1989, does manage occasionally to penetrate the American cultural noise machine--most recently with a reissue of much-lauded photographer Susan Meiselas's monograph, Nicaragua. For me this is an excuse to revel in
As an almost lifelong observer of presidential politics--which I have come to view as the American quadrennial carnival of democracy--I sadly assert that the once energizing and redemptive spectacle of Americans choosing their president has become a pallid, limpid specter of democracy. This observation began with the Adlai Stevenson-Dwight Eisenhower
In our heavily industrialized civilization, we have rightly placed a great value on handmade, original one- or few-of-a-kind goods. For Handmade Nation: The Rise of D.I.Y., Art, Craft, and Design, which is the textual offshoot of a film project due for release next year, Faythe Levine criss-crossed the
Though I am not an admirer or enthusiast of Boston writer Dennis Lehane, who is best known for the novel on which Clint Eastwood based his film Mystic River--I have never quite comprehended the plaudits he has garnered--I did appreciate his recent novel Shutter Island. And now comes his doorstop
Straight from Boston, a conversation with author Amy Bloom on her latest book, Away, the benefits of the writing life, and the tedium of extra-long novels.
Which superpower regularly exports inferior goods, infiltrates other economies, has a questionable human rights record, and preemptively wars against other sovereign nations? Strong evidence can be presented that the U.S.A. fits that bill, but let's go with the conventional view and name the People's
In some fashion you all, no doubt, celebrated Banned Books Week (Sept. 29-Oct. 6), the American Library Association’s annual celebration of the freedom to read. How, you are asking, might one celebrate? The A.L.A. suggests you read or reread one of the top 100 challenged books of
Apparently we are heading to an important election and many citizens and various aliens of all stripes, eyes, and ears are being besieged by the various soothsayers, talking heads, and comedians who make their living mediating American and world politics for the rest of us. Personally, I find our leap-year
Perhaps it is too obvious that the manifold pleasures of the world (as well all manner of infelicities, not to mention horrors) mostly come at you without introduction or warning. Max is a compelling film starring John Cusack as Max Rothman, an Austrian Army veteran who lost an arm at
It is not beyond reason to assert that the small segment of humanity devoted to the written word can be further divided into those who find reading as an escape or departure from the real day-to-day world and those for whom it is, in part, a lens with which to
As little attention as is paid to literature in the United States—apparently we have greater matters with which to deal—Canadian writers are rarely acknowledged (Alice Munro excepted) down here in the lower 48. Andrew Pyper has a good chance of breaking through the caribou curtain with his fourth
Like many right-thinking Americans, I have been sporting a 1-21-09 sticker on my front bumper for a few years. That date, enlightened citizens will acknowledge, is the last date of the Bush/Cheney presidency—an administration that has more than its share of tell-all tomes and Bob Woodward faux exposés.
With nearly 30 books of novellas, novels, stories, essays, poetry, and food and travel writing under his ample belt, one might expect Jim Harrison’s name to have to have wider currency, at least among smart folks that read books. Yet, despite being translated into more than 20 languages and
For those people who attempt to claim the world of fine art is distinct from the commercial one, sullied by filthy lucre and other crass venal motives, this book may be hard to swallow as it clearly and definitely exhibits the blurring of what arguably are archaic categories—though even
If you remember (as I do) or are not long removed from your reiterated adolescence—known, in America, as your undergraduate years—you will recall all manner of silly affectations, excessive tastes, and dramatic postures, soon overcome by the rigors and demands of so-called real life. For me, in that
I was looking over a recent copy of The Believer (the annual music issue) and was much pleased to see there was an article on singer/poet/songwriter Gil Scott-Heron, once of the long-ago Last Poets, who were known for their anthemic “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” About this
As we have seen over the weekend, an untimely death (such as they are) of a prodigious young talent is a shock to the system. Francisco Goldman, who did great journalism in Central America in the 1980s and has written a number of well-regarded novels including The Divine Husband, suffered
One of the benefits of doing literary journalism is the sporadic largesse of book publishers; as a recipient of daily deliveries, one of the more fun and pleasing byproducts of that is the opportunity to pick a book at random from the towering biblio-stacks and dipping into the pages to
There is an open question on what character flaw or personality disorder causes me to lord over people who don’t know anything about Nicaragua or at least where it is located. No doubt it will be given ample consideration in my memoir (current working title: Just Talking: How to
In the large, inchoate expanse of critical terrain best characterized by the question of “What were they thinking?” one must relegate the newest effort, Raising the Bar, by veteran TV producer Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, and N.Y.P.D. Blue). The bombardment of promotion on
This time around—it being an election year and all—a hurricane’s landfall stole the G.O.P.’s most recent thunder. This time, the threat of another deadly disaster got through to our lame-duck president and the major networks. And obviously New Orleans and the Gulf Coast offer
Growing up in the shining city on the plains—Chicago—early on in my life I encountered the dark and shocking story of Leopold and Loeb’s crime: In 1924 two University of Chicago students, Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr., killed, with no apparent motive, 14-year-old Bobby Frank. One
In fits of attempting constructive self-criticism (also known as navel-gazing), I ponder the possibility that my disaffection with mainstream politics and my lifelong drift from left-leaning liberal to socialist to anarchist is mostly a result of my biography. That probably is supposed to matter, especially to people who think that
[Photo by Robert Birnbaum] I was a reader of Robert Stone (A Hall of Mirrors, Dog Soldiers, A Flag for Sunrise, Children of Light, as well as assorted entries in Harper’s—one on Havana and one on the 1988 Republican National Convention in New Orleans) before I knew anything
Though I dipped into Louis De Bernières’s Colombian Trilogy (The War of Don Emmanuel’s Nether Parts, The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman, Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord) it was not until Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (the basis for an awful film by the same name) and a
Our man in Boston sits down with author Elizabeth Strout to talk about Maine, her latest novel, and the plights of the modern writer. Now with audio excerpts.
You all know, or will learn now, that I admired Kurt Vonnegut a great deal—an admiration that began and lasted past my youthful, stupid years into my golden, stupid years. I was looking for some information about Kurt and stumbled upon a note from his daughter, Edie. Res ipsa
Receiving an advance copy of The Best American Mystery Stories 2008—guest-edited this year by George Pelecanos—reminds me that Houghton Mifflin’s onslaught of its franchise The Best American Series anthologies is not far behind. What started in 1915 as simply The Best American Short Stories now has every
The ubiquity of digital cameras and the avalanche of images whose lives are wholly lived on hard drives, as well as other aspects of 21st-century visual aesthetics, make black-and-white photography seem like some arcane ritual practiced in far-off time by god-artists named Walker Evans, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus,
I suppose one might be amazed at the subjects that fill the hundreds of thousands of books published each year—and though I don’t want to sound jaded, I must say that I am no longer. Though, of course, many books give me pause for a lingering inspection of
Cartoonists have struggled in the American culture for their rightful seat at the big arts banquet of popular culture—the big shift in their legitimacy can probably be pegged to Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus in the late ’80s. Back in the mid-20th century, parents who were
Last year, when word went out that Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were once again sharing the silver screen in a film based on Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, I was pushed along a path of once again coupling films made from important or at least imposing novels. Yates, by
Based on an impressively large body of work and awards from people who care about such things, one can say Lawrence Block is a big thing in the crime story universe. But I came upon his work through a well-realized film, 8 Million Ways to Die by Hal Ashby (his
A few months ago I was pleased to note James Sturm’s America: God, Gold, and Golems. Now comes a new opus and collaboration. Arguably, baseball is best consumed as a game for boys and girls of all ages and frequently attempts to make more much of it ring false
Any number of things, mostly of a serendipitous nature, bring certain books into focus—life being very much a kaleidoscopic succession. In this instance, Amy MacKinnon’s debut novel, Tethered, is adorned by a colorized version of Toni Frissell’s wonderful 1949 photograph “Lady in the Lake,” which I first
Roxana Robinson, who recently published a novel, Cost, with noteworthy blurbs and which received good notices and appreciative reviews, is a skilled literary fiction practitioner whose compact body of work includes two previous novels, three story collections, and a biography of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. None other than Robert Stone,
I must note that my sense of the people who are popularly characterized as conservatives—officials and pundits—is that they are not coherent enough to be judged as anything other than loonies and comedians and carnival barkers. I have in mind as the prototypical American conservative George Will and
Despite a recent loss, I do have some books for you to heed. You can take my word for it—in any event, it’s the only word I am capable of at this moment—that they are worth your attention. 1. The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen
Success is often accomplished in a team. At The Morning News, one long-running and successful team is that of Robert Birnbaum and Rosie, his faithful canine companion and co-interviewer, who passed away on July 22, 2008.
I have had the pleasure of speaking with Louis Begley three or four times—pleasures additional to having read nearly all his novels. Thus it is with great anticipation that I greet the publication of his biographical essay (a form I very much favor) on Franz Kafka. Zadie Smith enthuses
If you thought Edward Meese, John Ashcroft, and Alberto Gonzales were shameful, you might want to take a short stroll down memory lane in this authoritative and apparently the first complete biography of Richard Nixon’s attorney general, who landed in a federal penal institution for his part in the
It is apparent from Adam Thirwell’s (Politics) subtitle (“A Book of Novels, Romances, & Their Unknown Translators, Containing Ten Languages, Set on Four Continents, & Accompanied by Maps, Portraits, Squiggles, Illustrations, & a Variety of Helpful Indexes”) that he means to have fun with this book, which is a
Some Americans may find the continuing revelations of the United States’s heinous injustice and craven exploitation shocking and distasteful. I find many of them, including the massacres at Rosewood and Tula, instructive and sobering. Historian Robert Whitaker carefully presents the story of race war in Elaine, Ark., and the
I confess I am intrigued that The Washington Post’s Jonathan Yardley, who is not someone who features an outstanding sense of humor, wrote that he couldn’t stop laughing at Seth Greenland’s (The Bones) sophomore novel. The storyline develops as Marcus Ripps takes over his brother’s dry-cleaning
Rocky Mountain News reporter Jim Sheeler won the Pulitzer Prize for the story on which this book is based. Marine Major Steve Beck has the onerous task of personally notifying the families of U.S. troops killed in combat. Beck and his efforts to comfort the families make for a
I have already enthusiastically noted the publication of Alan Furst’s 10th novel. In a recent chat with the author, he mentioned the excellence of the audio versions of his novels. In this case, Daniel Gerroll reads this iteration of Furst’s fine snapshot of middle Europe circa 1937-38.
James Lee Burke is a fine crime-story writer, and this is another one of his Dave Robicheaux novels. Most of them were set in New Orleans—which was an important character in this series—for obvious reasons, Dave and family have decamped for Montana and naturally run into thugs, gangsters,
Roxana Robinson (Sweetwater) belongs to a small but important subspecies of humanity who can translate their imaginations into vivid and compelling prose. In raw numbers their population on our planet is small—but larger than you think. As has been said in another context, the voices of fiction may be
Having been published to accolades on distant shores, it took a while for Dermot Bolger’s harrowing and gritty depiction of late-century Dublin to make it to America (kudos to the University of Texas Press and its James A. Michener fiction series). Multidimensional storyteller Bolger gives us three young Dubliners
Receiving a new George Pelecanos novel wreaks havoc on my well-ordered universe. I immediately set aside all but my most urgent responsibilities and appointments until I have turned the last page of his latest opus. Fortunately, his storytelling is of the page-turning species. In his latest tome, six D.C.
As many commentators suggest, the idiosyncratic C.D. Wright is a school or movement of one, connecting the personal with the political (the war in Iraq, the post-Katrina debacle in New Orleans, illegal immigration, globalization/global capitalism) in her poetry. Here she gives us her 12th book, from which this
One of the puzzling aspects of the roiling cultural waters of late-capitalist America is that Bill Moyers, a mild, thoughtful, and well-spoken Christian, should serve as the feared left-wing demon whose presence on PBS indisputably exposes its liberal agenda. On the other hand, it makes sense that the crooks and
As a talking head, George F. Will does present himself as an arid and smug and, dare I say, tight-sphinctered Caucasian. His writing, though (except for his humorless desiccations of baseball), suggests a thoughtful, erudite thinker who is the class of the comedians, flying monkeys, and holy rollers known as
It’s really noisy out there. “Conservative bloggers jab Obama on foreign languages.” (Huh?) Christie is getting divorced. There is a new cell phone. Angelina had twins. Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox 360. Freddie, Fannie, and Bernie Mac are a mess. Brett Favre wants to un-retire. There’s
Not being a fan of Guns N’ Roses, or whatever motherlode of music they mined, I nonetheless accept that the lead figures of commercially successful bands can’t help but have interesting narratives attached to their careers. Considering the mercurial Rose has reportedly been a Malibu hermit since the early
Two things seem indisputable: American healthcare costs are irrationally inflated and Americans are not commensurately healthy. Nortin M. Hadler, M.D (The Last Well Person: How to Stay Well Despite the Health-Care System) has the requisite irreverence and skepticism toward medical providers and the healthcare labyrinth to write a clear-sighted
Man of letters and contrarian Ishmael Reed has a substantial body of literary work; this book anthologizes various of Reed’s op-eds for The New York Times and Playboy. Reed writes: In the following chapters, I mix it up with the media bullies. Lewis Hyde, before a meeting of the
Jack London, best known for his beloved dog tales, The Call of the Wild and White Fang, was a deeply committed progressive voice, and this anthology makes a good argument for refreshing his relevance as a polemicist. Much-published Paul Berman, an aspirant to similar progressive credentials, blurbs: “Jack London always
This latest edition of Canongate’s Myth series has Sigmund Freud conversing with blind prophet Tiresias as he lays dying of cancer. In addition to Freud’s drugged retrospective, the Oedipal complex/myth is grist for this mill.
As the title indicates, this 500-plus-page tome is taken from the notebooks that cinema titan Fellini kept by his bedside for more than 30 years. The director of classics La Dolce Vita, Amarcord, 8 1/2, La Strada, Juliet of the Spirits, Satyricon, and I Vitelloni, Fellini, who died in
If you have not been introduced to TomDispatch, the useful and informative web site edited by Tom Engelhardt, this anthology is a good opportunity to become acquainted. Among the many commentators in this book are Chalmers Johnson, Juan Cole, Rebecca Solnit, Mark Danner, Ruth Rosen, Jonathan Schell, Greg Grandin, Noam
Small-press newcomer Two Dollar Radio offers up Rudolph Wurlitzer’s fifth novel, reportedly the author’s transmogrification of a screenplay of a modern-day western entitled Zebulon. The commentary on Wurlitzer’s first novel in more than 20 years finds critics falling all over themselves to commend this work. As in
Historian Chalmers Johnson warns: Americans who still think they can free themselves from the clutches of the military-industrial complex need to read this book. For example, the gimmicks the Pentagon uses to deceive, entrap, and sign up gullible 18- to 24-year-olds are anything but voluntary. Nick Turse has produced a
By any standard Robert Scheer, who currently edits TruthDig.com, is a highly regarded journalist working within the admirable tradition of American muckraking. Bringing his 40 years as a journalist to bear on an updated amplification of Eisenhower’s farewell warning about the military-industrial complex, Scheer offers what his publisher
David Bajo’s debut novel features mathematician Philip Masryk, who, despite two marriages, has carried on a longtime love affair with book conservator Irma Arcuri. She vanishes, leaving him her library of 351 books, of which she has written five: Within these volumes lay the clues to Irma’s disappearance
Paul Beatty’s Ferguson W. Sowell, a.k.a. DJ Darky, voyages to Berlin in pursuit of collaboration with reclusive avant – garde jazzman Charles Stone. His search in the exotic precincts of Berlin allows for an ongoing rumination on a wide range of subjects. Alex Abramovich observes: Slumberland
Thomas Beller and Joanna Yas edit this Manhattan-based literary publication, and this edition features the usual buffet of unknown (to you) writers with a few exceptions—in this case the great Robert Stone—who contributes a piece of short fiction, High Wire. No doubt worth more than the price of
If you don’t own Vidal’s National Book Award-winning United States: Essays, 1952 – 1992, a compendium of his admirably provocative polemical prose exhibiting his vast erudition, you can dip into his amusing and well-honed unorthodoxy with this more-focused anthology. Jay Parini, Vidal’s literary executor, has selected 24 of
Ten books of poetry form August Kleinzahler’s oeuvre—this edition samples from them as well as adding a few. Kleinzahler is famous (at least in poetry circles) for a Poetry magazine screed against Garrison Keillor’s middlebrow tastes—and more specifically his mediocre anthology of verse. One review quotes
Cynthia Ozick responds to my inquiry about her recent literary encounters: Two electrician-boys were here yesterday, installing robust new wiring for an air conditioner, and keeping me from my desk; so I wandered lonely as a cloud along some lately unvisited shelves, and happened on a book that had been
Tom Holm, Native American scholar at the University of Arizona, fashions his debut novel in post-Great War Oklahoma, where oil exploration and exploitation were seriously at play. Ex-cop J.D. Daugherty sets up shop as a P.I., and he and his Cherokee sidekick, Hoolie Smith, are hired to track
In Churchillian terms, this was Kennedy’s finest moment. By most accounts, his handling of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis was a judicious and even-handed bit of brinksmanship. Of course it probably would not have been necessary had Kennedy impressed Krushchev as a strong and forceful leader in their meeting
Tsutomu Mizukami, who died in 2004, was a prolific writer who produced all manner of books—novels, detective stories, biographies, and plays. The Temple of Wild Geese is partly autobiographical; likeMizukami was, the protagonist is raised in a Buddhist temple, which results in dire consequences years later. In Bamboo Dolls
Pierre Michon’s Small Lives was first published in French in 1984, and is now being republished by Archiplelago Books, a small press out of Brooklyn that specializes in “publishing excellent translations of classic and contemporary world literature.” About Michon, David Varno explains: The task set for Michon’s readers
For some years Melville House has published the Art of the Novella series, which is now supplanted by the Contemporary Art of the Novella series, of which Nobel laureate Imre Kertész is the debut title. Tim Wilkinson, who translated the work from Hungarian, points out: The Pathseeker,
This odd compendium of lists ends its 450 pages with Graham Fuller’s “Ten Christmas Movies to Save Us from Satan’s Power” (Fuller apologizes for leaving off Terry Zweigoff’s Bad Santa): Christmas Holiday Swiss Miss The Man Who Came to Dinner The Magnificent Ambersons Comfort and Joy The
On the face of it, human rights is not exactly the most exciting topic, but in this historical survey (apparently the only comprehensive study of its kind), Micheline Ishay has reached back to the Mesopotamian code of Hammurabi and constructed a context with which to view the new, globalized world
This book’s subtitle (“The Misunderstood Years Between the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Start of the War on Terror”) aptly synopsizes its content, focusing on the 12 years of naive hope where it was seriously (we thought) suggested there would be a “peace dividend.” Considering this study
The Eugene V. Debs story is a moving, albeit instructive one, though he likely will never be given his due as one of the great figures of American history. Jailed for speaking out against the so-called “war to end all wars,” Socialist Debs ran for president in 1920, garnering a
Physicist Alan Sokal is famous for his 1996 Social Text article, “Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity,” written as a parody of postmodernism (it is included in this book). Of course, it caused much warranted fulmination in academic circles, as well as a stir in the
There is some quibbling regarding the use of the word “empire” in Pekka Hämäläinen’s fascinating new history of the powerful and unrecognized Comanche tribe of the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. Nonetheless, this highly original narrative details the tribe’s accomplishments and impressive geographical reach throughout the 18th and
Jim Holt, who writes for a number of smart publications—The New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, Lingua Franca, and then some—tries to answer the question, “What’s so funny?” Being the engaging and skillful writer he is, he is not obliged to succeed for this book to
A family that includes William and Henry and Alice James is an obvious motherlode of story, information, and speculation—all that remains is for Paul Fisher to build a coherent, insightful narrative about these fascinating siblings. Asked what is new about his James family book, Fisher explains: Until just a
The latest opus from Wang Anyi (Baotown) is set in post-World War II Shanghai, and traces the survival of ghetto girl Wang Qiyao, who is deeply impressed with the incandescence of 1940s Hollywood and must hide her “decadence” from the various ebbs and flows of Mao and Co.’s attempt
Iowa Writer’s Workshop guru Ethan Canin (Carry Me Across the Water) has a number of well-regarded books under his belt, most notably his story collection The Palace Thief. His newest effort takes a scion of the working class, Corey Sifter, from estate yard boy to U.S. senatorial aide
Margot Livesey—whose newest opus, House on Fortune Street, you should include in your to-be-read list—writes: When I was almost five my father married my stepmother and we began to spend our summer holidays in Pitlochry, the small Scottish town where my stepmother’s sister lived. There were four
Daniel Flynn (Intellectual Morons, Why the Left Hates America) pulls no punches in his survey of left-wing schemes, personalities, agendas, and movements. In spite of a clearly stated bias, he manages to inform and elucidate, even as he dredges up singular and worst-case examples of progressivism. The Nation review explains:
A man is marooned at O’Hare Airport on the way to his daughter’s wedding, which he will now miss. He begins to compose a letter asking for a refund for his plane ticket—a letter that mutates into a review of his life and its misspent, wasted years.
Except for what I consider an unfortunate title choice (once having heard various versions—Nat Cole, Johnny Hartmann—of Billy Strayhorn’s masterpiece) that casts an odd shadow, this is Richard Price’s greatest novel. As a reader of his entire body of work, I didn’t think he could
It is immediately apparent (as it should be) that this slim volume of poems is handsomely and thoughtfully designed. A nice choice of colors and type for the dust jacket and a sturdy shape that houses the 19 poems in Jorie Graham’s latest collection of ambitious poems.
Nicholas Dawidoff’s previous memoir, The Fly Swatter: How My Grandfather Made His Way in the World, told of Professor Alexander Gershenkron’s illustrious and much-traveled life. In his newest offering Dawidoff, who teaches at Princeton and writes for some of our smarter magazines, writes of growing up as an
Novelist Peter Orner (The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo) edits the third volume in McSweeney’s Voices of Witness series, an oral history collection of undocumented immigrants. No doubt they will never get the attention that cable TV blowhard and anti-immigration advocate Lou Dobbs garners, but this tome is a
Hunter Thompson was sufficiently talented, charismatic, whacked, imaginative, and much more to warrant countless books. Credited with inventing gonzo journalism (as Gabriel García Márquez is with magical realism, neither of which exists outside the work of its inventor), Thompson offered the possibility of an American journalism untethered to PR operatives
Like a handful of other writers (Elmore Leonard, Jim Harrison, Alan Furst, Colin Harrison, Philip Roth, Margot Livesey, and Richard Price), Thomas Perry regularly writes immensely readable novels, which in my experience have never disappointed. Despite his succumbing to the serial temptation with his bestselling Jane Whitfield books (which he
It’s amazing to me how this story is still tiptoed around many years later. From the publisher: “Joseph E. Persico explores F.D.R.’s romance with Lucy Rutherfurd, which was far deeper and lasted much longer than was previously acknowledged.” Huh? And it might give one the chance
If you are unaware of McSweeney’s I’d ask you where you have been, but I realize its big, big world with lots of stuff to distract us. Anyway, this edition is about art and the art world—dare I offer the obvious observation that they are not the
Can you imagine today’s sports stars expressing the title’s sentiments? Former Major League Baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent assembles a riveting cast of stars of what may arguably called the golden age of baseball—Brooks Robinson, Billy Williams, Whitey Ford, Ralph Branca, Carl Erskine, Duke Snider, Bill Rigney, Robin
I am almost always enchanted by exile and expatriate memoirs of Cuba—from Renaldo Arenas’s Before Night Falls (made into a great film by Julian Schnabel) to Alma Guillermoprieto’sDancing With Cuba to Carlos Gensemer’s Snowing in Havana to poet Heberto Padilla’s tortured and melancholy tale. Carlos
John Kessel (Good News From Outer Space, Corrupting Dr. Nice) is well regarded and noted in the speculative fiction world, extolled for humor and a crafty imagination. This anthology of 15 fiction shorts includes his much-lauded Lunar Quartet. You probably don’t know of him, which a fine reason for
Many of you will no doubt recall that during the ‘60s, Oregon was a much-extolled destination for people seeking what was then (and perhaps now) considered a decent life. So much so that Oregonians wrestled with various methods of discouraging immigration—which if unchecked may have turned its idyll into
Tim Russert, in case you missed the news, has died. As he was a TV journalist, it behooves the U.S. news engine to dwell on and parse every aspect of his life and death. He was one of some magazine’s 100 most important people—which, considering how many
Self-exiled in the early ‘70s (in response to a military coup when her work was banned and her life threatened) Uruguayan writer Christina Peri Rossi wrote these poems during her first years in Spain—apparently they were too personally painful for publication when first written. Included are two essays on
Nigerian writer Uwem Akpan also happens to be a Jesuit priest with an MFA from the University of Michigan. His stories have won prizes and been published in The New Yorker. His first book and story collection are a clear and focused portrayal of the gauntlet of deprivation and depredations
I have been a devotee of former Harper’s editor Colin Harrison’s (The Havana Room) writing from his first novel (of six), and he rarely disappoints. His grasp of the modern world’s infrastructure—high finance, information technology, various forensics—as well as a microscopic understanding of urban life
Portuguese novelist JoséEduardo Agualuso is introduced to English-speaking Americans with this crime story set in Angola, where Felix Ventura trades in manufacturing pasts for customers requiring a nobler lineage. The odd ensemble of characters and the volatile setting provide a well-rounded story with surprising resonance.
If you can point to the globe and find Belarus, more power to you. Poet Valzhyna Mort is a Belarusian cultural nationalist, well-regarded and -awarded in Europe. She now lives in the U.S. and this bilingual edition is her first tome published in this country. The New Yorker noted:
Amazingly, I am always catching the impressive Margot Livesey’s (Banishing Verona) novels on the run. Or as excerpts in The New Yorker. Or something like that. I mention this by way of pointing out the powerful magnetic pull of Livesey’s prose. Her new opus is no different—immediately
Honduran novelist Horacio Castellanos Moya (El asco, La diabla en el espejo), author of eight novels, five collections of short fiction, and one book of essays, and currently a teacher at the University of Pennsylvania, wrote this story (first published in Spanish in 2004) of an alcoholic writer hired to
Considering the novelty and power of Walt Whitman’s liberating appeal to a broad swath of society, it is not surprising that he awakened and engendered strong devotion from a plethora of followers and devotees. This book traces the activities of some of his most avid associates: Anne Gilchrist, John
Author and filmmaker Russell Banks (The Reserve, The Sweet Hereafter, Affliction), who has 16 well-crafted novels under his belt, ventures into nonfiction with this meditation on the origins of America. Banks has never been reticent about his progressive leanings and gives them full license in this offhanded critique of American
I have found Gore Vidal variously incisive, opaque, riveting, infuriating, brilliant, prescient, amusing, and just plain entertaining. Thus, this interview was so very satisfying (as well as edifying).
New York University professor Darin Strauss’s (The Real McCoy) new novel sets aside his past interest in limning American history for a story set in contemporary America, more specifically Long Island. Josh Goldin, a media salesman, is embroiled in a battle to keep his infant son as local authorities
David Wroblewski’s debut novel opens with mute Edgar Sawtelle living with his family in remote northern Wisconsin. The idyll is upset by Edgar’s father’s death and young Edgar’s suspicion that his uncle had a hand in his father’s death. Trying but failing to prove his
Novelist Michelle de Kretser (The Hamilton Case), who lives in Australia, focuses her third novel (which won both the Christina Stead Prize for fiction and Book of the Year in her home country) on Indian-Australian professor Tom Loxley, who is completing a book on Henry James but is preoccupied with
George Lakoff, who is involved in something called cognitive linguistics purports to explain the science behind our political decision-making and, more to the point for Lakoff, how to put that science in the service of progressive political forces.
When I was in public school, Wounded Knee, Sand Creek, Rosewood, 20th-century lynchings, American concentration camps, and numerous other dark and ugly episodes in American history were ignored or glossed over. Upon more serious study, this disconcerting series of revelations casts a long and heavy shadow over the concept of
My 10-year-old son Cuba has read all three prior Percy Jackson novels (The Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Titan’s Curse) and attests to the entertainment quotient of the fourth book. Rick Riordan, whose talents lie in recasting classic myths for this new millennium, leaves his young readers
With the exception of The Jaguar Smile, a slim monograph from the ‘80s about a trip to war-torn Nicaragua, Salman Rushdie’s literary gifts have never quite appealed to me. I am pleased to report his newest opus is a grand story with the bonus of including Rushdie’s astute
Fae Myanne Ng, who was last heard from in 1994 with her novel Bone—short stories in smart magazines like Harper’s excepted—sets her new story in ‘60s San Francisco, offering up a story of Chinese life in America that juxtaposes old and new China. In her tale, butcher
If ever a paean to grassroots activism were needed, this would seem to be a time. As Bill Moyers expresses: Amy Goodman doesn’t practice trickle-down journalism. She goes where the silence is, she breaks the sound barrier… She believes the media should be a sanctuary for dissent, the Underground
One of America’s lesser-attended afflictions is an appetite for advice and counsel from anyone adopting the mien and attitude of expertise. Which of course makes for a steady stream of flimflam artists. In the book world this is translated into the self-help genre, of which there is an endless
Modern poetic titan William Butler Yeats no doubt deserves scholarly analysis and exegesis; based on Helen Vendler’s stature and reputation at Harvard, her study of Yeats’s techniques and formal flourishes will no doubt continue to attract accolades and hurrahs. Most of the praise centers on her allowing readers
In case it has escaped you, there are foodstuffs that are endangered by the toxicity of post-industrialism. In any case, among other contributions of this book are a list of more than 1,000 such perishables, and successes of “eater-based” conservation constituencies in “food recovery, habitat restoration, and market revitalization”
Walter Benjamin’s most famous essay is anthologized here (version two of four) along with 40 or so other ruminations on media, some well known, others obscure, and some presented in English for the first time. Benjamin was a true original and his hallmark essay deserves to be recapitulated for
Sean Wilentz, who has among other things weighed in on the Bush presidency’s place in history, offers up a clear-headed historian’s assessment—or should I say reassessment—of Ronald Reagan’s place and influence. Along with Richard Reeves, Wilentz expands the universe of historiography that evaluates Reagan beyond
Odd attire exhibited by youth—tattoos, piercings, and buttock-cleavage trousers—are nothing new. Think tie-dye, sandals, and Native American jewelry, or jeans, T-shirts, and leather jackets with pointy shoes. What is new is attention to minority American cultures; in this case, Luis Alvarez diligently charts a culture’s exemplar, the
It is about time a serious scholar, in this case University of Iowa American Studies mentor and former nightclub comic Russell Peterson, examines this rise in attention and credibility attributed to The Daily Show, The Late Show With David Letterman, and such. It is no news (yet still fascinating) that
Here is a posthumous collection of 14 of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Styron’s (Sophie’s Choice, The Confessions of Nat Turner) essays: The title piece treats his relationship with John F. Kennedy; pieces on Truman Capote, James Baldwin, and Terry Southern, and yes, some personal meditations are also included.
I dimly remember seeing Jean-Luc Godard’s Weekend on a twin bill with a Laurel and Hardy short—I think Nixon was president—and I suspect there was a kind of a shift in how I saw things; looking back, watching films was never quite the same. Godard was a
Much-heralded artist Jessica Abel and husband Matt Madden assemble a 15-lesson curriculum for creating comics (or if you will, graphic novels). She is a busy bee, also releasing two other books (Life Sucks and La Perdida). That’s it for my words; have a peek at the pictures.
I suspect that Don Winslow will never write a book that grabbed me as much as his epic thriller The Power of the Dog, but that won’t stop me from reading his stuff with hope in my heart. His newest tome (not to be confused with the 1941 Howard
Amy Bloom responds to my query about her current reading: Jane EyreThe Collected Poems of Jane Kenyon Robert McCrum, who has spent 10 years at the literary helm of Britain’s Observer and before that, as editor at Faber and Faber, steps down and offers a thoughtful view of the
Darin Strauss, whose third opus, More Than It Hurts You, will enter the literary fray soon, weighs in on his latest reading: The Journals of John Cheever In case you missed my notice of Alberto Manguel’sThe Library at Night,The New York Times published Manguel on the same topic.
Elizabeth Strout, whose latest opus, Olive Kitteridge, is garnering well-deserved reviews, writes: The Power and the GloryThe Power and the GloryThe Ministry of Special CasesWarm SpringsPeace The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces From an Active Life McKibben, whose The End of Nature is incanted with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as
Sigrid Nunez, whose novels I have enjoyed and admired, responds to my inquiry about what she’s been reading lately: “I’ve been asked to teach a literature seminar in the Graduate Writing Program at the New School this fall. Thinking about ideas for a course, I remembered reading an
Joan Frank, whose first novel Miss Kansas CityI reviewed for the San Francisco Chronicle, responded to my query about what she is reading: Twenty-Eight Artists and Two SaintsNew YorkersStonerOlive KitteridgeRecent HistoryTime and MaterialsFidelity Hispaniola: A Photographic Journey Through Island Biodiversity by Eladio Fernández As you may know, “Hispaniola” is the
Having had reason to contemplate philosopher/titan Ludwig Wittgenstein, (see below) I thought I would lay out a few hors d’oeuvres of his thinking. From his so-called early phase: * The world is everything that is the case. * What is the case, the fact, is the existence of atomic facts.
Susanna Moore (In the Cut and Big Girls) shares her current reading with you and me: Blood MeridianMr. ApologyStop TimeA Stopover in Venice Read on. The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic by Darby Pensey and Peter Statsny; photographs by Lisa Rinzler By now it is
As a literary journalist, I hang on to the notion that the universe of literature encompasses more than words and stories—think of the business of publishing, the cranks and attenuated characters and other odd life forms that populate it—and contains less of the refuse of life. Or at
The estimable Chip Kidd, designer of books' fronts, backs, and spines, chats with our man in Boston about what it's like to work on the words that come in between.
From the pen of Nobel Laureate John Steinbeck: A book is like a man—clever and dull, brave and cowardly, beautiful and ugly. For every flowering thought there will be a page like a wet and mangy mongrel and for every looping flight a tap on the wing and a
It is not yet clear to me whether Nicholson Baker’s amazing and brave new book, Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, will have a normal cycle of attention or if his treatment of the various belligerents’ bombing of enemy cities and exposé of
Ex-Chicagoan, Syracuse University mentor, dog lover, and spirited writer George Saunders responds to our query regarding the state of his reading: Dead Souls Having participated in a web-based roundtable discussion on Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke (soon to be posted) and having seen a trio of reviews, the most ludicrous
As has been my practice these last few weeks I have asked a writer I know—in this instance George Pelecanos—for some words about his reading: NorthlinePat Garrett and Billy the KidStonerBlood on the ForgeReturning to EarthLudlowCold in JulyValdez Is Coming Also, is it possible that I am the
Regular readers of this space will notice the continuation of my recent genius brainstorm of asking writers of my acquaintance to offer a tidbit about their current reading. Nicholson Baker—whose amazing new opus, Human Smoke, was noted in this very same space—is this week’s contributor. (Being a
Last week I introduced my new headline-grabbing, star-fucking, gambit—which entails begging various writers of my acquaintance to offer some literary tidbit that I may incorporate into this space. This week, Chip Kidd: The Eighth Day Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis by George Makari Better to have used
Recently I sent a note to Richard Russo: The Morning News Of course, all my literary acquaintances are not famous and award-winning authors. No doubt some are occupying musty garrets on obscure Midwestern campuses and perhaps would revel (maybe that’s too strong a sentiment) in the thought that someone
The proliferation of journals unfortunately referred to as “blogs” has naturally led to a burgeoning bibliography dedicated to pointing out the coincidence of the decline of civilization and the rise of weblogs. Sara Boxer, who wrote Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks From the Wild Web about which she confesses, “Two years ago,
James Wood, Harvard mentor, literary critic (late of The New Republic, now of The New Yorker), and once and future novelist (The Book of God), has a new book, How Fiction Works, coming out this spring. In a 2006 article he stated: “The realist writer, that free servant of life,
Marshall McCluhan said: “When the globe becomes a single electronic web with all its languages and culture recorded on a single tribal drum, the fixed point of view of print culture becomes irrelevant, however precious.” Can someone explain to me what “the fixed point of view of print culture” is?
The presidential campaign is not anywhere close to full throttle and already it appears to be another dreary, droning TV miniseries, characterized by bad writing and even worse acting—it’s a close call whose performances deserve the hook more, the candidates, their campaign consigliores, or the braying and bleating
Three novels under his belt, Arthur Phillips sits down for a chat with our man in Boston about his commitment to fiction writing and, a challenge on quite another level, finding the discipline to focus on one piece at a time.
Anthony Burgess once described his ideal reader as “a lapsed Catholic and a failed musician, short-sighted, color blind, auditorially biased, who has read the books that I have read. He also should be about my age.” You can’t blame me for wondering who is reading these snippets (besides hopeful
This new political moment, featuring candidates who are not angry, mean-spirited hacks spewing fear and loathing (Although Mitt Romney’s “Marching Forward into the Future” speech is its own brand of totalitarian gibberish) brings to mind an observation that I came across by Friedrich Nietzsche in Don Lee’s excellent
From The Once and Future King by T.H. White: The best thing for being sad…is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake listening to the disorder in your veins, you may
As Dec. 31 approaches, the year-end lists and other media devices for taking up space and time remind me that there is, of course, something useful to be said about the recent past. And that something useful will find itself in this space, when and if I resolve what it
Not that I expect anything for such efforts, but a trickle of perspiration did break out as I pondered the pros and cons of participating in the year-end list frenzy. Faithful readers may recall I offered a best-of-the-year-so-far list in July to alleviate this creative logjam. If you have ideas
From Norman Mailer’s “The White Negro: Superficial Reflections on the Hipster”: A totalitarian society makes enormous demands in the courage of men and a partially totalitarian society makes even greater demands, for the general anxiety is greater. Indeed, if one is to be a man, almost any kind of
From Joseph O’Connor’s yet-unheralded new opus, Redemption Falls, as his protagonist is escaping exile in Tasmania: not freedom at allancien regime Breaking It Down by Rusty Barnes Rusty Barnes edits the journal Night Train, one of those sparkling stars that complete the literary constellation. He has a new
Norman Mailer died this weekend. I was a fan of Mailer’s and think I be may one of the few people who read his massive stinker Harlot’s Ghost. Nonetheless, I remember vividly the brilliance of Armies of the Night and how much it moved me. I remember seeing
Last week I made reference to Nobel Laureate Wislawa Szymborska—and once pointed out that her small volume Nonrequired Reading is my inspiration for this column. In that book, she notes the disparity between what was reviewed in many literary journals and what was happening in bookstores: “Most, if not
From Wislawa Szymborska’s 1996 Nobel Lecture: The world—whatever we might think when terrified by its vastness and our own impotence, or embittered by its indifference to individual suffering, of people, animals, and perhaps even plants, for why are we so sure that plants feel no pain; whatever we
From Red Rover by Deidre McNamer: The Paris Review Interviews, Part II edited by Philip Gourevitch Apparently, wiser or at least more modest heads have prevailed at the Paris Review and the hyperbolic claim of their interviews being the “DNA of literature” seems to have been dropped. This second volume
The silly season has begun—awards nominations being announced and no doubt the attendant contretemps to follow. I’ll refrain from my usual jaundiced opinionating except to relay the good news that Jim Shepard has been nominated for a National Book Award for fiction. He is a writer for whom
I have never thought myself better or smarter because of my love of reading—though I do tend to think that about others who read. But I am beginning to wonder what cultural litmus test we may need to gauge the intellectual acuity of our civilization. Watching the baseball postseason
I was completing David Plante’s riveting novel, ABC, in which the protagonist has what I would call a transcendental episode with a 1923 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, when I received a copy of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Which got me to thinking about the universe unto themselves
It's humans' flaws that make the world go round, and novelist Susanna Moore examines them under intense magnification. She chats with our man in Boston about crime and punishment.
From David Plante’s new novel, ABC: It seemed to Gerard that the trance he was in raised him above himself, so that he saw himself as if from a higher level, leaning closer and closer to read the book as the room became dim; saw himself and saw the
Last week I made mention of the appearance of George Saunders on the Late Show With David Letterman and cited an account of that unlikely happenstance by one of Saunders’s former students, Jeff Parker. Well, George’s editor at Riverhead, Sean McDonald, was kind enough to send us the
Among other things I can’t explain is the aptness of the well-worn line from A Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” Lots of good books to read, and yet there is something foreboding about the American political landscape—I
&Consider the journalistic artifice where writers presume to know the habits and activities of their readers: “While you are stuck in a 22-mile backup on your way to—and back from—your Labor day weekend at Wellfleet, Tahoe, or Myrtle Beach, pop in one of the eight compact discs
As if there are not enough reasons to read The New Yorker, last week it was reported that James Wood (he of the “hysterical realism” coinage) was joining its staff. All well and good, but I was puzzled by an odd statement that was attributed to The New Republic editor
I had it in mind to vituperate on some irksome aspect of American book culture but then I realized that time spent venting my spleen on well-trod terrain would be time taken from my great pleasure in reading Richard Russo’s latest opus, Bridge of Sighs—a pleasure that is
In his novel Elizabeth Costello, J.M. Coetzee has his protagonist give a speech when she accepts an award for her literary achievement—Coetzee’s acceptance speech to the Swedish Academy for his Nobel Prize was a wonderfully digressive incantation based on Robinson Crusoe—in which she says: Despite this
The coming months are filled with promise of great literary pleasure: books on the horizon include those by some of my favorite writers—Andrea Barrett, Percival Everett, Richard Russo, Joseph O’Connor, Ana Castillo, Ha Jin, and Graham Swift. And on a very sad personal note, I learned the other
A note to the feral fans of J.K. Rowling: Seeing them live in a seemingly endless video loop, and knowing there are apparently huge piles of lucre at stake in her latest revenue center make it hard for me to look upon that hoopla as a benign event. The
July happens to be the anniversary month of four revolutions—the American, the French, the Cuban, and the Nicaraguan. Maybe there is a theory that explains this; more likely it’s an accident of the calendar. What does not seem accidental is that we seem to appreciate revolutions from a
When history class turns into a blur of names and dates, historical fiction may be just what you need to put a face on things. Thomas Mallon talks with our man in Boston about the appeal of novels and the state of publishing.
Here’s some inside baseball on big-time journalism’s favorite default mechanism to fill space or air in the event of a slow news day or a lack of imagination: a list. In this present case, I can plead that, given the high volume of books noted in the Book
From a Paris Review interview published in 1977, here’s Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. on patriotism: Interviewer: Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.: Interviewer: Vonnegut: Interviewer: Vonnegut: Far more recently, I noted Rebecca Steffoff’s A Young People’s History of the United States; last week, know-it-all New York Times reviewer Walter Kirn bludgeoned
The New York Times Book Review—my favorite literary whipping boy—is much in my mind right now as 1) Dan Simon, publisher of the skewered-by-universal-scold Walter Kirn, The People’s History for Young Adults, ripostes with a letter to the editor; and 2) Thomas McGuane anointed Out Stealing Horses
May I say that I am bored—of course, I may!—with literary reviewers, some intelligent and useful (Adam Kirsch), some Paleolithic (Richard Schickel), offering undisguised special pleading as to why their self-appointed, self-selecting, self-serving guild members are superior to the barbarous rabble they identify as literary bloggers. In the
Recently, the world of literary fiction was preoccupied with the diminishment of review space in American newspapers, with various (self-) interested parties weighing in. The New York Times stepped into this imbroglio and suggested that all was not lost—some bravehearted and industrious souls, known collectively as literary bloggers, might
My buddy Howard and I were involved in a somewhat heated dispute over recent remarks in this space suggesting the pantheon of iconic American painters was in his words, “small enough to fit on the head of a pin.” I had mentioned Grant Wood (and demurred on Disney and Warhol)
Last week I noted Christopher Hitchens’s new book, God Is Not Great, and my own disinterest in the book’s subject, but certainly not its author. This week Michael Kinsley discusses the book and fully one-half of that essay is about Hitchens—which makes it a valuable (and entertaining)
The recent brouhaha regarding the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s decision to downsize by eliminating the book editor’s position (currently held by the well-regarded Teresa Weaver) is a curious thing. It did send a ripple of indignation through the book reviewer and author community, and occasioned some mainstream (as opposed to
Transplanted Irishman Colum McCann has just finished a ramble with Gypsies in his newest novel, Zoli. A conversation about the Romany people, the perils of writing novels tied to history, and more.
I should warn you that of all the events of the past month (besides the commencement of the 2007 Major League Baseball season) Kurt Vonnegut’s passing sticks with me most—well, not so much his passing, but his living. So here I will treat you to a brief, though
The chattering and clattering classes are preparing for PEN’s World Voices fest coming soon to Manhattan. Me, I was in Cambridge, Mass., stumbling around the Bryn Mawr Bookstore, and found two gems by Moroccan author (and 2004 IMPAC prize winner) Tahar ben Jelloun: The Sand Child and With Downcast
I know I belabor expressing my animus to many literary and artistic awards. I must therefore point out those I find useful, such as the IMPAC/Dublin Award (an international award drawn from the recommendations of librarians), which recently announced its 2007 short list. This prize also has the distinction
This is not quite the silly season—happily, I’m not referring to the start of Major League Baseball—but rather to the fact that most of the beauty pageants known as awards have already had their day and their press releases. But, along comes Granta97 (Spring 2007), with an
Sigrid Nunez wanted to be a dancer, and lucky for her readers, that didn't work out as planned. Nevertheless capable of some deft footwork, she explains to our man in Boston how the two pastimes are similar.
It has not escaped my attention that some of my literary comrades have mellowed their negative attitudes toward the New York Times Book Review. I wonder if I will ever be able to say the same. I go through phases of paying attention to book reviews, and this is a
Two of my favorite events take place, in quick succession, in March: the twice (or thrice)-yearly Bryn Mawr Bookstore half-price sale, which, incredibly, discounts some titles more and more as the week-long sale progresses; and the PEN/Hemingway Awards, which in recent years has had Russell Banks, Richard Russo,
I’m no fan of the beauty contests that are known as awards, even the literary variety; nonetheless, I accept that they normally improve the lot of the awardee/awarded. Thus I am pleased to note that Daniel Mendelsohn has received a National Book Critics Circle nod for his wonderfully
The Mick Jagger of British literature is out with another book slated to be a hit. A conversation about everything important under the sun: getting older, the differences between life in Uruguay and London, and the best ways to write fictional footnotes.
In order to reify my credentials as a bona fide journalist I feel that I must occasionally create some list or other and also exhibit some sense of timeliness and topicality—these being the only paths open to me as I have foresworn having lunch with anyone but close friends.
Cultural moments that seem to have gained weight and currency in recent years strike me as just so much noise and special effects—which does not augur well for the literary narrative, if you look at the hoopla and attendant regurgitation of the advertisements on the modern version of Bread
Last week was busy and productive wherein, prefatory to scheduled conversations with the authors, I read Naked Sleeper by Sigrid Nuñez, House of Meetings by Martin Amis, and Zoli by Colum McCann—all excellent—and then, of course, carried out the conversations which should see the light of day, um,
This past holiday I bought my son—whose favorite song is Warren Zevon’s “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado”—a 1GB iPod Shuffle. Its approximately 240 songs should be sufficient for his nine-year-old musical literacy. This started me contemplating the notion of collection and storage—for the record, I have
Our man from the north country toasts the new year by conversing with the novelist and editor about her thoughts on the state of therapy, storytelling, and the novel.
One consequence of living in a largely book-demarcated reality is a useful disregard for conventions such as the reflexive (and may I suggest lemming-like) homage paid to the calendar year. Since I don’t celebrate most commercial holidays (except to give my young son, Cuba, gifts), nor do I find
Let me just say that I am not a fan of lists and their masquerading as service journalism—though many 21st-century post-industrial homo ludens rely on lists to navigate the shit-streams of information that threaten to capsize our tiny strange boats—which is not the same thing as being force-fed
If you are a book store habitué or are shopping for people who like books, you have noticed that booksellers are loaded up with books that used to be called “coffee-table books.” (Whatever is a coffee table?) My sharp-eyed editor noticed this week’s rendition of Book Digest had unconsciously
The issue of how we come to choose the books (and music, art, movies, television, etc.) we attend to is one that I wrestle with continuously, in large part based on my suspicions of and unease with the literary (critical) press. Ideally, one could sample everything of interest before settling
In Richard Powers’s excellent newest novel, The Echo Maker, a brain scientist contemplates the bad reviews attendant to his freshly published book—a novel experience for him. And he concludes that, for those involved in the review business, there is no gain to positively reviewing books by well-established writers.
You should know that Nonrequired Reading, Wislawa Szymborska’s small volume of prose pieces published a few years ago, altered my notion of book notices: Nonrequired Reading For Nonrequired Reading, Szymborska collected about a hundred of these sketches—one of my favorites is The Button in Literature by Zbignew Kostrzewa.
Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about her new book and the Biafran War, being African in America, and the distorted picture of Africa created by the media.
You are forewarned: This is about me. In a rare paroxysm of self-consciousness I recently spent some time going over (in my head, mind you) my contributions to American literary journalism—specifically this weekly rendition of recently or about-to-be published books. While I stand proud, if not tall, regarding my
Perhaps there is some truth to the old saw that literary squabbles are so vicious and virulent because they are for such small stakes. Assuming that the dispute around Myra MacPherson’s welcome biography of renegade journalist I.F. Stone, All Governments Lie, is at least in part literary, we
There was a point at which I experienced great vexation that the steady drumbeat of eyewitness reportage contained by the books of Jon Lee Anderson, George Packer, Thomas Ricks, and Seymour Hersh seemed to have little or no effect on the body politic. Along comes Bob “Which Way is the
You don’t need me to make you aware of such new books as those by Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth, or Margaret Atwood—the literary press (such as it is) and even the barbarians manning the decks of mass media seem to find the press releases apprising them of these
Historian Sean Wilentz talks about social studies versus history, purple prose in founding-father biographies, and how "states rights" started trumping slavery in Jefferson Davis's memoirs.
Based on the drumbeat of enthusiastic notices it seems that the book of the moment is critic/scholar Daniel Mendelsohn’s The Lost. Good news indeed (I will have something to add to the choir in due time), as this is a wonderful non-Holocaust, Holocaust book (read the reviews to
President Bush’s press conference of Sept. 15 should be noted as a landmark of sorts, as he continued to use the presidential bully pulpit to elevate public discourse and educate the American people in what appears to be the New Logic: Question: Bush: Interesting slight of hand, no? To
Publishers Weekly and The New York Times must have been too busy to note that Dandy Dan Wickett, founder of the Emerging Writers Network and the hardest working man in the book world (leading some observers to think there is more than one DD) and Steve Gillis, author and founder
Journalism being what it is—it seems driven by lists and so-called service features and other banalities—there have been occasions when I have been tempted to stoop to such, and on this day I can no longer resist. I hope against all hope that this assemblage makes some (more)
Reporting a civil war in Africa sounds tough, but try investigating a 40-year-old crime in America's quietest suburb. A chat with journalist Sebastian Junger about his new book on the Boston Strangler.
No tawdry headlines, scandals, feuds, vicious reviews, or dumb awards—what a pleasant week! I took pause to contemplate the late Susan Sontag’s view that, “To have access to literature, world literature, was to escape the prison of national vanity, of philistinism, of compulsory provincialism, of inane schooling, of
I didn’t previously have a particular picture of a perfect or at least prototypical New England day—yesterday in Peterborough, N.H., at the MacDowell Colony will ever onward be that picture. Bright sun, but not too—colors vivid and true. Breezy, almost cloudless sky, and a congenial gathering—
A South African journalist—I wish I could recall his name—once poignantly quipped “a patriot is someone who saves his country from its government.” Looking around the world (actually one need not exercise much agency, as the bad, bad news wafts through the seemingly impermeable iPod-istic barriers we construct)
The great American novel doesn't exist--except in the minds of marketers (and those who believe New Yorkers write the best books). A conversation with Susan Straight about regional writing, as American as apple pie.
It looked as if this was a week when none of the folks I have identified as Enemies of Literature were wreaking havoc such as creating the Best Book about Whatever in the past 25 years lists or identifying “scummy little books” or beating up on Frenchmen. I was wrong.
The fetishism for full disclosure is variously amusing and vexing, especially when it comes from this, the journalistic quadrant. Of course, it’s a practice that I engage in, albeit subtly, as when for instance I announce (as I do frequently) that I am partial to books on Cuba, New
A rowdy conversation about Talese's new memoir, Lorena Bobbitt's Hollywood agent, attending fights with James Baldwin, and a hundred other reports about the joys and pains of getting a story right.
Watching the United States Millionaire’s Club latest so-called debate about the American military adventure in Iraq inevitably lead me back to Karl Kraus, who observed in April of 1917: “War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too
As a fairly private citizen I should be pleased that this week has gone by without a particularly egregious depredation occurring in the literary world—but as a journalist I am, of course, without anything to jaw about, nothing about which to form nimble sentences of despair and outrage—no
The faux short-fingered vulgarians (a little inside joke) at Coudal Partners have come up with a swell idea, not the least of which because they have shown dubious judgement in including me—they asked an assortment of writers/readers to recount (in a few hundred words) a reading experience in
Writer and off-the-charts associater Lawrence Weschler talks about his new book, Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, plus publishing as an act of citizenship and the joy of sideways learning.
With regularity there is much caterwauling and ululating directed to the depredations and idiocies that emanate from the newspaper book review that people love to hate (guess who?)—this is engaging and amusing only to a point—one that in my estimation has long passed. Recently, it has occurred to
Last week I noted that the recently concluded industrial gathering—the one that occasions much forgettable verbiage and disposable text—has in part the task of previewing the next season’s book industry’s offerings. Having spared myself the company of strangers and being subjected to other predations, I believe
This past week, book-business types and then some gathered in Washington, D.C., to do commerce and rub shoulders at the big annual industry gathering known as BookExpo America. I hope some good comes of this melee—many of the then-some types are filing web reports, which I have not,
A Bee Stung, So I Killed All the Fish (Notes From the Homeland 2003-2006) by George Saunders The seven tidbits in this limited-edition booklet (cover art by Sean McDonald) are vintage George Saunders of the reigning (ironic?) aesthetic that has culminated in his latest collection, In Persuasion Nation, which as
Author and 2005 Rooster winner David Mitchell talks about his new novel, Black Swan Green, the appeal of Bill Evans, and the differences between sex and writing.
As someone who reads a fair amount and is surrounded by books and never travels without a few books, and whose inner monologue is frequently preoccupied with things literary, I must confess to a certain amount of navel-gazing about this activity that has become the engine of my life. Thus,
It doesn’t take omniscience or prescience to know that as you read, this editors at relevant media (a category opening room for much debate) around the nation are preparing their list for the dubious seasonal thing known as Summer or Beach Reading. I know this because I have (for
The fascinating author and journalist Richard Reeves talks about writing Reagan, founding New York magazine, and covering Lévy's America more than 20 years ago.
I don’t get out much but I make occasional forays to events that include rooms full of strangers, and so I recently attended the latest version of the yearly PEN Hemingway awards at the JFK Library at which Joyce Carol Oates was the keynote speaker. Her talk, a loose
&My editors here regularly hector to me about my inclination for citation—as opposed to the expression of my own thoughts. Now I must say, I love my editors. [Hey, thanks. —eds] And no doubt my humility (I often feel what I have cited is far better than anything
Should "America" only include the United States? Does art criticism matter when it doesn't account for emotions? A conversation with author Alberto Manguel about working with Borges and responding to paintings.
Elsewhere on this site you will soon find a recently rediscovered, never before published conversation with Alberto Manguel, author of The History of Reading, and more recently A Reading Diary. Growing up in Buenos Aires, he came to know one of modern history’s most renowned librarians, Jorge Luis Borges.
Perhaps you are thinking, Who is this guy and why should I listen to him about books? (That is, for those who are not thinking, Who cares? or He’s cool; he went to high school with my second cousin.) A perfectly legitimate question, which if we are going to
Politics can be dangerous in some parts of Africa, but childhood can be even more risky. A conversation with Uzodinma Iweala about what's breaking the continent apart--and what's holding it together.
Here are some things axiomatic for me in my take on talking about books: 1) There are far too many books and writers deserving of the meager attention doled our by America’s mainstream literary press; 2) I am not at all constrained by whatever Byzantine code or principles book
Author and Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco, named by Time as "America's Best Social Critic," talks about his new Melville biography--one that's actually enjoyable to read.
In 2003 when Susan Sontag won the Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels, the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, her acceptance speech--delivered in Frankfurt at a ceremony boycotted by the U.S. ambassador--was entitled "Literature is Freedom." Almost no American media noted her award or cited any portions
Christopher Lydon, former New York Times man, former local TV news anchor, and one-time Boston mayoral candidate and his able crew have ventured into a compelling hybrid of radio and new media. Open Source combines broadcasts of Lydon's dialogues with smart people on wide-ranging topics with a blog/
Strings, branes, and baryogenesis--our man in Boston is guided through contemporary science by one of the country's top theoretical physicists, Lisa Randall.
French intellectual superstar (the French have such things) Bernard-Henri Levy, known there as BHL, was introduced to these shores with Melville House's publication of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? Proving everything new is old, BHL has now reprised a 19th-century classic with his 21st-century American Vertigo: Traveling America in
As an occasional TV viewer, far be it from me to question the apparently immense popularity of Fox Network's 24, though how anyone can take Kiefer Sutherland's arboreal acting style seriously does perplex me. The network in question makes it up to me with its well-written
While the publishing world freaks out over false memoirs, who better to speak about truth in writing than an author with the same name as his protagonist?
A handful of journalists continue the honorable tradition of investigative reporter IF Stone, airing out the information that scoundrels in government and business work tirelessly to bury. Robert Scheer has been fighting the good fight for nearly 40 years, auspiciously beginning with How the U.S. Got Involved in Vietnam.
Tens of thousands of American soldiers are in Iraq, but only a handful of U.S. journalists are covering the story from the inside. One of them, George Packer, talks about bravery, ideology, and changing opinions.
Those $150-per-gallon fancy-schmancy coffees have nothing on French Market coffee, whose motto is: "The essence of New Orleans in a cup." Chicory gives it a strong nutty taste, and also offers numerous health benefits, according to the American Coffee Co. Hey, I've been drinking it since
Eric Clapton, arguably the greatest white guitar player of his generation and still going strong, rose to prominence in the 1960s as a member of the band Cream. Bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker completed this power trio, which pumped out chart-dominating hits from 1966 to 1968 and then
American business has preserved the conformity of the '50s but ditched the job security--what happened? A conversation about the terror of applying for jobs when experience doesn't matter.
The eponymously named tome that serves as the catalog for the Masters of American Comics exhibition at U.C.L.A.'s Hammer Museum and Los Angeles's MoCA contains work by familiar names such as R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware, as well as
Writer and musicologist Tom Piazza weighs in on his adopted city with the poignant Why New Orleans Matters. This book is a bittersweet paean to what is, arguably, the most joyous metropolis in North America and, ironically, the product of the kind of racial and cultural mongrelizing that America has
When novelists are listed among our most despicable citizens, can America claim to love literature? Our man up north talks to author Rick Moody about how we're all on the same team when we're reading.
For the cost of the iPod, one should be able to expect near perfection. Odd, then, that the distinctive white earbuds--which make one a target for envy (and in some precincts, much worse)--don't block out ambient sound. Not to worry; you can replace them for half the
Our man from New England talks to one of the Carolinas' favorite sons about the strengths of southern writers, the benefits of teaching welders, and the crushing reality that awaits MFA grads.
Comic book collector, superhero aficionado, and novelist Chip Kidd, who pays his rent designing book covers, mostly for the House of Knopf, is the subject of the new mid-career retrospective Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006. In addition to a remarkable assemblage of book covers of bestsellers and literary masterpieces
A reactionary shudder is sweeping through the book world as the status quo realizes it's terrified of literature. Our man in the mountains speaks with author Jonathan Lethem, who tears into the idea of "realist" vs. "anti-realist" fiction.
Our man in Boston gets nostalgic for his Chicago roots in this wonderful conversation with short story master Stuart Dybek about the city of Daley, Bellow's turf, and the difficulty of writing in a sentimental, nevermind linear fashion.
I don't remember Mark Spragg's 2004 bittersweet novel An Unfinished Life garnering much review attention, but the new film based on it is sure to have a paperback edition with Robert Redford, Jennifer Lopez, and Morgan Freeman on its cover. That's probably worth more
Besides appreciating certain olfactory delights on their own merits, I am a normal neurotic American, bombarded with commercial messages about personal malodorousness: breath, body, foot, hair, and clothing, not to mention my indulgence in what is to some the anti-social habit of smoking cigars. Thus, I approve of Kiehl'
Do fiction writers put their best face forward in their work or in their private lives? Will the next story always be the one that maybe gets it right? A conversation with the extraordinary author about the craft.
Don Winslow's third novel, The Power of the Dog, is a white-hot, high-velocity narrative through the narco-trafficking of the '70s, '80s and '90s, credibly implicating the various drug- and law-enforcement agencies in Mexico and the U.S., the mob (Irish and Italian), and the Vatican
A simple statement but a nightmarish one: we can no longer expect to have more energy, only remorselessly less energy. An intense chat with author James Howard Kunstler about the chaos that will rattle our society once the energy disaster takes hold.
No doubt in the future all our food will come out of pouches and packets, obviating the need for Cuisinart, All-Clad, and Wusthof doo-dads. My trusty rice cooker has been shelved since I discovered Zatarain's microwaveable rice pouches, 10 flavors ready in 60 seconds. Straight from New Orleans
My antipathy to all forms of conditioning (excepting a moderate amount of the physical) means I am a, uh, proponent of fans as cooling devices. One of my recent discoveries is the Holmes Blizzard Oscillating Grill Power Fan, which has--get this--a remote control, a timer, and various speed and oscillation
The humanities are ruined, and the universities full of crooks. Art in America is neglected, coddled, and buried under chatter. The right looks down on artists; the left looks down on everyone. Our man in Boston has an electrifying conversation with Camille Paglia.
An Alessi teapot designed by Michael Graves sits atop my stove as a grave marker to my past affluence--Graves claims that he began to design for Target because he couldn't afford his own products. But I doubt $20 can buy you a better package of form and function
It can take six weeks to write six minutes of fiction, and that's not so bad. A conversation with the author of Saturday about taking the time to do your thing, the changing face of literary culture, and how everybody really can write a novel.
While I don't think I'll ever succumb to listening to books instead of reading them, I am regularly inclined to revisit something I have read by having a go at the audio version. I was amused and fascinated by Bob Dylan's memoir Chronicles but
Queens may sport the most languages spoken in New York City, but Brooklyn certainly has the most writers. Our man in Boston talks with Brooklynite Elizabeth Gaffney about her new book, set in 19th-century New York, and her 16 years editing the Paris Review with George Plimpton.
Do genre writers have more fun than plain old novelists? Is it possible to embed philosophical thought in a thriller? For an all-around TMN smorgasbord, our brain in Boston chats with Contributing Writer Kevin Guilfoile about his new novel.
Prejudice cannot be defeated entirely, but it can be fought with courage and stamina, and with really good lawyers. Our bookish reporter in Boston has a fascinating conversation with scholar Deborah Lipstadt about her six-year battle with Holocaust denier David Irving.
Are we comforted by the official account of Sept. 11--the victims, the heroes, the assigned roles of good and evil--or do the generalizations shortchange our experiences? A conversation with novelist Jonathan Safran Foer about his new book, the writing life, and what it's like to be reviewed by Updi
Writers often imagine editors as dolts with hearts of coal and brains of corn; writers, frequently, are self-absorbed paranoid ignorant dilletantes. A conversation about how the publishing system really works and the life of a Celtics fan who only loves Bird.
Lots of folks complain that the movies aren't what they used to be, but not many people can tell you why. Our man of the north has a fascinating talk with film critic and writer David Thomson about the start of the art, Million Dollar Baby, and how Nicole Kidman went from bimbo to genius.
Few writers have all their books in print; extremely few have almost a hundred in circulation. A conversation with Robert McCrum about his recent definitive biography of P.G. Wodehouse and the difficulties in pinning down a man who liked to blend in.
What would a 1950s family near Niagra Falls say about an episode of The Sopranos? Why does America so easily forget its ordinary heroes? A conversation with the prolific Joyce Carol Oates about her most recent novel, why she loves to teach, and how many other books are gestating in her desk.
Our man in Boston talks with author Louis de Bernières about his most recent book, Birds Without Wings, during a fascinating discussion about the Ottoman Empire, how good people go astray in crowds, and the richness of Arab proverbs.
If we spend so much of our lives thinking and worrying about sex, is it any surprise the involved emotions are tied to chemicals? A conversation with maverick author T.C. Boyle in a lively back-and-forth about Dr. Alfred Kinsey, contemporary fiction, and the role of the husband in the kitchen.
No one can escape their past, and everyone once had parents who made mistakes. Our New Hampshire correspondent chats with the wonderful Cynthia Ozick about the underpinnings of her new novel, the rewards of touring, and exactly how do publishers think.
All parents want their children to do well; not all parents want their children to become writers. Author Lan Samantha Chang chats with our man in Boston about her new novel that was 10 years in the writing, and her slide from upstanding daughter to rebel with a clause.
Grave mistakes have been made in Iraq, but there's still room for hope. A conversation with New Yorker correspondent Jon Lee Anderson for a fascinating, frank talk about life in Baghdad, U.S. policies as viewed from the street, and how Iraq's insurgency could possibly be quelled.
Our Boston correspondent chats with novelist Jennifer Finney Boylan about going on Oprah, the differences between being a female writer versus a male writer, and her best-selling book about becoming the woman she always was.
Our New Hampshire correspondent catches up with veteran writer Renata Adler to survey today's journalism (when it seems like a PR agency for the government) and learn exactly why you don't diss the Times book review chief.
Our man in New Hampshire snags a fascinating conversation with the New Yorker's principal political voice Hendrik Hertzberg about his new book, the president's 12-step politics, and why the New York Times Book Review should avoid sexing up.
Once upon a time, the CIA was stocked with Yalie do-gooders, liberal spooks who were going to change the world. A conversation with the master novelist and former agent about a dying breed, posing as a reporter undercover, and the different ways to describe success in publishing.
Is the American publishing world a playground for pansies? Do all diners in fancy New York restaurants look European? Our man in New Hampshire talks to the novelist about her new book, love for boys, and respect for the prime minister.
Our man in New Hampshire talks with critic and author James Wood about his professional dilemmas, what makes for appealing style in fiction, and which stings more, getting panned as a critic or as a novelist.
Author Michael Lewis talks about his wave-making book Moneyball and the current state of baseball, plus what's good and bad with journalism today, Red Sox paranoia, and the joys of screenwriting.
Our man in New Hampshire talks with Jim Harrison, author extraordinaire, about life in Montana, female chauvinism, navel-gazing in New York, and how a good MFA program might be established.
Some nights you want a period romance, some nights a claustrophobic babble-drama, and some nights you just want a ripping adventure story that will keep you awake. A conversation with novelist Ben Jones about his new book of Arctic exploration.
Ulysses S. Grant and Elizabeth Bishop never met, but we can imagine how the conversation might have gone. A conversation with author Rachel Cohen about her book of road trips and crossed paths, including many of America's best writers.
America may believe in its own exceptionalism, but it's also been exceptionally involved in Haiti's history. A conversation with American Book Award-winner Edwidge Danticat about the current state of Haiti and the current state of her stories.
Most cities (save New York) have a crime-writer-in-residence, and D.C. is lucky to call George Pelecanos a local. A conversation with the author about his new book, the daily grind, and what it's like to write a TV show with a dream team of novelists.
We know the lives of cops from TV shows, movies, and maybe an uncle who retired from the squad, but those versions are rarely true to police officers' real struggles. A chat with former cop and lauded storyteller Laurie Lynn Drummond about life behind a Louisiana badge.
It's easy for twenty-somethings to believe their lives are monumental and truly complex, but what if it's true? A conversation with first-time novelist Francesca Delbanco about the pleasures of Los Angeles, solidarity in friends, and going nuts in Montana.
Living in three dimensions can be hard enough, but 10? More than 10? Our man in Boston engages physicist and author Brian Greene in a fascinating conversation about string theory, science writing, and the type of nightmares that haunt contemporary physicists.
The U.S. understanding of Cuba often begins with embargoes and ends with Castro trying out for the Yankees. A conversation with Cuban author Ana Menendez on Fidel, Che, and fomenting passionate revolutions.
Understanding ourselves better may be the key to getting better. A conversation with writer and physician Rafael Campo on the role literature and expression play in the healing process, and what's being done about it.
The next time your imperfect car breaks down perfectly, remember, someone designed it that way. Our man in N.H. talks to author and former engineer Henry Petroski about the effects of design in our lives.
The dead may know Brooklyn, but it's the living who make it. Author Jonathan Lethem talks about his new book, how to handle savage reviews, and the process of remembering his hometown from far away.
To win the Booker Prize twice certainly requires talent, but to celebrate only one of the winnings suggests a particular madness. A conversation with author Peter Carey about his new book, private schools in New York, and the terrors found in boredom.
Being the most hated man in literature isn't easy, but it helps to have a backbone of lauded novels behind you, plus an actual hatchet for publicity stunts.
For many, Anne Garrels's voice became the most trustworthy stream of information broadcast from Iraq. A frank discussion with the author and NPR Iraq correspondent, one of only 16 non-embedded journalists to remain in Baghdad for Operation Shock and Awe.
The author covers topics such as his new book, Saul and Patsy, Chekhov's medical career, politics, Minnesota, and what it's like to have your work made into film.
American literature may over-adore the short story, but that doesn't mean some great stories aren't being written. A conversation with writer Julie Orringer about New Orleans, snarkism, and the relative ease of brain surgery.
A critic's life can be a happy one, with the right frame of mind. A conversation with Pulitzer-prize winner Gail Caldwell about a life well read, 19th-century novels, and the changing of hearts.
It's a good world when Americans and Canadians can still get along. A conversation with author Douglas Coupland about Columbine, art projects, pus-bags, and that sexy country of sin up north.
