Omnivore
Confronting conservatives
From Humanitas, Walter A. McDougall (Penn): The Challenge Confronting Conservatives: Sustaining a Republic of Hustlers (and responses by Michael P. Federici and Richard M. Gamble and a reply). Cosimo Magazzino (Roma Tre): The Economic Policy of Ronald Reagan: Between Supply-Side and Keynesianism. Landon Schnabel (Andrews): Whatever Happened to the Christian Coalition? A Sociohistorical Content Analysis of the Contract with the American Family and the Republican Party Platform. Ed Kilgore on
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Paper Trail
More than ten million copies of Fifty Shades of Gray have been sold in the U.S. since it went on sale six weeks ago.
One reason why it’s so difficult to predict literary longevity is because of the “high-school popularity problem,” Tom Vanderbilt theorizes, noting that the qualities that make people popular in high school (or the literary world) like being the “radiant prom king, adorned with varsity letters” don’t translate into
…Syllabi
Hobo Lit
Michael Sandlin America's attitudes toward its most destitute citizens have always been sharply polarized. Consider, for instance, the philosophical divide between Emerson's uncharitable self-reliance ("Are they my …- Coming of Age Leigh Stein
- Understanding North Korea Lee Ambrozy
- Remixology Judy Lillibridge
- Field of Screens Michael Thomsen
Daily Review
The Yankee Comandante
For a moment, he was obscured by the Havana night. It was as if he were invisible, as he had been before coming to Cuba, in the midst of revolution. Then a burst of floodlights illuminated him: William Alexander Morgan, the great Yankee comandante. He was standing, with … - A Difficult Woman: The Challenging Life and Times of Lillian Hellman
by Alice Kessler-Harris - Boarded Windows
by Dylan Hicks
Interviews
Tom Bissell
We're fortunate to live in a time where a handful of enormously gifted writers are revitalizing the essay form. One example is Tom Bissell, whose new essay collection Magic Hours: Essays on Creators and Creation, adds up to a kind of narrative of contemporary culture, weighing in on video games, underground literary movements, bad movies and the fates of great writers.
…- Indoctrination into the practices of modern motherhood can feel like showing up at …
- Parataxis is Édouard Levé’s best friend. Parataxis—also John Ashbery’s best …
- Joe Brainard achieved a singular position in the poetry world before his death from …
- ANTHONY SHADID, the lead Middle East correspondent for the New York Times, died on …
- "Taylor has had many biographers. Yet their books often reveal more about their authors …
- “Nice just to walk and breathe and not worry about every goddamn thing. Nice, too, …
- Lillian Hellman was once a star. She was one of the most successful playwrights of …
- THE TITLE OF THE SECOND VOLUME of Susan Sontag’s private writings is taken from an …
- Cathy Park Hong’s poetry can be dark, depressing, grimly prophetic, and fun—often …
Reviews
Excerpt
The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro by Antonio Tabucchi
Antonio TabucchiItalian novelist Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa in 1943 and died in Portugal last weekend at the age of 68. Tabucchi was the author of more than two dozen novels, including 1994's "Pereira Declares," and 1997's "The Missing Head of Damascenio Monteiro," a crime novel about the discovery of a headless man. Below is an excerpt from the beginning of "The Missing Head," courtesy of New Directions.
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