Cartoonists have struggled in the American culture for their rightful seat at the big arts banquet of popular culture—the big shift in their legitimacy can probably be pegged to Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel Maus in the late ’80s. Back in the mid-20th century, parents
Last year, when word went out that Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were once again sharing the silver screen in a film based on Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road, I was pushed along a path of once again coupling films made from important or at least imposing novels. Yates, by
Based on an impressively large body of work and awards from people who care about such things, one can say Lawrence Block is a big thing in the crime story universe. But I came upon his work through a well-realized film, 8 Million Ways to Die by Hal Ashby
A few months ago I was pleased to note James Sturm’s America: God, Gold, and Golems. Now comes a new opus and collaboration. Arguably, baseball is best consumed as a game for boys and girls of all ages and frequently attempts to make more much of it ring false
Any number of things, mostly of a serendipitous nature, bring certain books into focus—life being very much a kaleidoscopic succession. In this instance, Amy MacKinnon’s debut novel, Tethered, is adorned by a colorized version of Toni Frissell’s wonderful 1949 photograph “Lady in the Lake,” which I first
Roxana Robinson, who recently published a novel, Cost, with noteworthy blurbs and which received good notices and appreciative reviews, is a skilled literary fiction practitioner whose compact body of work includes two previous novels, three story collections, and a biography of painter Georgia O’Keeffe. None other than Robert Stone,
I must note that my sense of the people who are popularly characterized as conservatives—officials and pundits—is that they are not coherent enough to be judged as anything other than loonies and comedians and carnival barkers. I have in mind as the prototypical American conservative George Will and
Despite a recent loss, I do have some books for you to heed. You can take my word for it—in any event, it’s the only word I am capable of at this moment—that they are worth your attention. 1. The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen
It’s really noisy out there. “Conservative bloggers jab Obama on foreign languages.” (Huh?) Christie is getting divorced. There is a new cell phone. Angelina had twins. Microsoft cut the price of the Xbox 360. Freddie, Fannie, and Bernie Mac are a mess. Brett Favre wants to un-retire. There’
As a talking head, George F. Will does present himself as an arid and smug and, dare I say, tight-sphinctered Caucasian. His writing, though (except for his humorless desiccations of baseball), suggests a thoughtful, erudite thinker who is the class of the comedians, flying monkeys, and holy rollers known
