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
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
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
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,
