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.
It is time to announce the contestants, judges, and brackets for the original, one-and-only, full-combat, oddly-predictive-of-the-Pulitzer-Prize, eighth annual TMN Tournament of Books, coming March 2012, presented by Field Notes.
When you’re 16 and searching, Jack Kerouac’s urge to hit the road can seem inspired, or at least inspiring. Later, you wonder if his literature was actually early-onset LiveJournal. Later still, On the Road deserves one more look.
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.
Ted Williams’s last game for the Red Sox was almost a flop. But it provided fuel for one of the best sports essays of all time—until the author started tinkering. On baseball, The Simpsons, and the creative impulse to never stop.
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.
Poetry can provide solace. It can also remind people to quit freaking out. Poems selected for Congress, nervous shoppers, Maureen Dowd, and the President of the United States.
Some people keep notebooks. Others keep lists. One type wants to remember; the other wants to forget. What’s not clear is who’s happier for all the scribbling. Confessions of a list-aholic.
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.
Allan Seager was a student at Oxford when he contracted tuberculosis. What happened next made him one of America’s greatest writers—declared the heir to Anderson and Hemingway—ever to be forgotten. Yet one of Seager’s short stories endures in ways that none of Hemingway’s can match.