Articles Written By Robert Birnbaum
Robert Birnbaum is editor-at-large at Identity Theory. All the sketchy details of his life will be (re)fabricated in his memoir-in-progress, Just Talking: How to Do Things With Words. His weblog can be found here.
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Birnbaum v.
Mary Roach
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.
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Birnbaum v.
Gary Shteyngart
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.
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Jessica Francis Kane
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.
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Birnbaum v.
Ben Greenman
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.
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Current Reads
Can’t Get No Satisfaction
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,...
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Current Reads
Stories of the South, North, East, and West
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....
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Current Reads
Are You Ready for Some Football?
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...
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Current Reads
America Goes Back to School
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’...
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Current Reads
Late Summer Hodgepodge
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...
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Current Reads
One Never Know, Do One?
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...
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Current Reads
Do We Care What Time It Is?
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...
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Birnbaum v.
Jennifer Egan
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.