Richard Flanagan
A conversation with Australian novelist Richard Flanagan about the erosion of book culture, Nicole Kidman's genius, and souls that are ever underline-able.
Robert Birnbaum
Lazy, Hazy Summer Days
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
It's a Mad, Mad World
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
Libraries of the Imagination
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
A Listing Ship
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
Of Ice and Men
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,
Summer Daze
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
David Remnick
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.
Enemy of the Good
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,
Kick-Ass Wit
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