North Korea nuclear talks to resume, with focus on verifying claims in documents recently dug up by China. Maliki demands withdrawal timetable from the U.S. Report from within non-violent West Bank protest movement. Regarding Obama's recent moderate "lurches," Times readers respond. G8 countries lining
Literary critic judges Obama based on his prose. Op: If Obama wants change, he should quit talking about the start of the Iraq invasion and find an honorable way to end it. Rising temperature of coffee deemed hoax perpetuated by anti-caffeine lobby. Hot jocks and variations online, in this
In Afghanistan, officials claim two U.S. airstrikes have killed dozens of civilians; coalition disputes reports, says only militants were present. Following Iraqi's P.M. declaration of victory over terrorism, a string of attacks kills 16, injures 15. Closing the door on the Hussein regime, U.A.E.
Cynthia Ozick responds to my inquiry about her recent literary encounters: Two electrician-boys were here yesterday, installing robust new wiring for an air conditioner, and keeping me from my desk; so I wandered lonely as a cloud along some lately unvisited shelves, and happened on a book that had
Ten books of poetry form August Kleinzahler’s oeuvre—this edition samples from them as well as adding a few. Kleinzahler is famous (at least in poetry circles) for a Poetry magazine screed against Garrison Keillor’s middlebrow tastes—and more specifically his mediocre anthology of verse. One review quotes
If you don’t own Vidal’s National Book Award-winning United States: Essays, 1952 – 1992, a compendium of his admirably provocative polemical prose exhibiting his vast erudition, you can dip into his amusing and well-honed unorthodoxy with this more-focused anthology. Jay Parini, Vidal’s literary executor, has
Thomas Beller and Joanna Yas edit this Manhattan-based literary publication, and this edition features the usual buffet of unknown (to you) writers with a few exceptions—in this case the great Robert Stone—who contributes a piece of short fiction, High Wire. No doubt worth more than the price
Paul Beatty’s Ferguson W. Sowell, a.k.a. DJ Darky, voyages to Berlin in pursuit of collaboration with reclusive avant-garde jazzman Charles Stone. His search in the exotic precincts of Berlin allows for an ongoing rumination on a wide range of subjects. Alex Abramovich observes: And try as
David Bajo’s debut novel features mathematician Philip Masryk, who, despite two marriages, has carried on a longtime love affair with book conservator Irma Arcuri. She vanishes, leaving him her library of 351 books, of which she has written five: Within these volumes lay the clues to Irma’s disappearance
By any standard Robert Scheer, who currently edits TruthDig.com, is a highly regarded journalist working within the admirable tradition of American muckraking. Bringing his 40 years as a journalist to bear on an updated amplification of Eisenhower’s farewell warning about the military-industrial complex, Scheer offers what his
