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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House of Wits
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,...
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The Song of Everlasting Sorrow
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...
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America America
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...
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What Margot Livesey’s Been Reading
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...
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A Conservative History of the American Left
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...
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Dear American Airlines
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...
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Lush Life
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...
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Sea Change
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...
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The Crowd Sounds Happy
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...
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Underground America
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...
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Outlaw Journalist
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,...
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Fidelity
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...