From NYRB, Joyce Carol Oates reviews The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall; Remainder by Tom McCarthy; Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald; and The Vintage Book of Amnesia: An Anthology; a review of A Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories by Primo Levi; a review of Greed; Women as Lovers; Wonderful, Wonderful Times; The Piano Teacher; and Lust by Elfriede Jelinek; and a review of The Savage Detectives; Distant Star; Last Evenings on Earth; and 2666 by Roberto Bolaņo. A review of The Temptation of the Impossible: Victor Hugo and Les Miserables by Mario Vargas Llosa.
As his autobiography makes clear, Mahatma Gandhi was too concerned with sex, diet and politics to be the otherworldly saint many took him to be. Pankaj Mishra on a classic of the confessional genre. Sex and the Saudi: A story of love, lust and shopping in the lives of four privileged young women is nothing new... but set in the conservative Islamic bastion of Riyadh it becomes a recipe for sensation and scandal. Sally Williams meets the taboo-breaking author Rajaa Alsanea. Prize-winning author Rajiv Chandrasekaran finds that four long-haul flights in a row leave him less than coherent, reflects on his wedding and a rabbi with a palm computer and finds a like mind on Iraq's bloody problems.
From CRB, a review essay on Larry McMurtry and the American West: A novelist who chronicles strong lives, despite himself. Writers Like Me: For most black authors, the writing life rarely unfolds the way it does for so many white writers you could name. The worst novel of the year: A review of The Average American Male: A Novel by Chad Kultgen. Return trip: The 50th anniversary of On the Road sees increased interest in Jack Kerouac and his Beat Generation classic.
The news that Antioch College would close in 2008 brings the question: Would the Antioch Review, an independent literary magazine founded in 1941, be shut down too? Where do the books go when a college closes? An interview with Andre Schiffrin, author of A Political Education, on his life and the world of publishing. A review of The Iron Whim: A Fragmented History of Typewriting by Darren Wershler-Henry. The greatest letters ever written: When the Swiss lawyer Albin Schram died in 2005, he left behind an extraordinary collection of letters by some of Western civilisation's greatest minds. They will soon go under the hammer - but here are the highlights of the collection.
A review of The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty by Wilfrid Sheed. A review of Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music by Hugh Barker and Yuval Taylor. From Rolling Stone, an article on The Record Industry's Decline: Record sales are tanking, and there's no hope in sight: How it all went wrong (and What Next?). For anyone who cares about music and its current chaotic state, the summer of 1997 was the beginning of the end of the music business as we knew it. So, Steve Jobs, what’s next? The iPhone, after all, is already two days old.
