The Unexpected Fantasist: The Portuguese novelist and Nobel Prize-winner Jose Saramago is a stubborn atheist, an unreconstructed Communist, an ornery political polemicist — and the creator of some of the world’s most magical, imaginative, sweetly lyrical fiction. Caribbean Odyssey: When he first read Derek Walcott's poems, VS Naipaul was overwhelmed by the talent of his fellow West Indian, who, at the age of 18, was already a master. The young poet had created a new language to describe both the beauty and the limitations of island life. VS Naipaul as the great offender: Few writers get up noses like VS Naipaul, but his views on Islam, Gandhi and English Lit courses have a ring of truth.

From New York, Watching Matt Drudge: He hides, but craves attention. He is prurient and prudish, powerful and paranoid, an icon of the right who seems obsessed with making Hillary Clinton our next president. And he has America caught in the grip of his contradictions; and somewhere at the intersection of policy porn and score-settling memoir lies the big-name political tract, and fall is often the season for them. Which will make the biggest media splash possible? Never mind the Journal's editorial independence. Pray for the New York Post's. Already Chewed News: What Jack Shafer's beloved newspaper has been reduced to serving.

A review of This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood by Jack Valenti. How violent taboos were blown away: Bonnie and Clyde shocked and thrilled the world when it was released in 1967. But the legacy of this savage classic is that it opened the floodgates for all forms of screen violence over the next 40 years. Where TV Is Good for You: With perhaps the exception of Homer Simpson, Americans tend to denounce television even as they devour it. TV Is Good for You: If you are a woman in rural India, at least. Vint Cerf, aka the godfather of the net, predicts the end of TV as we know it.