From H-Net, a review of Reading Virginia Woolf by Julia Briggs; and a review of Faulkner and the Great Depression: Aesthetics, Ideology, and Cultural Politics by Ted Atkinson. Ever the completist, John Updike had managed to finish his life-long project of drawing and connecting the things of his world. Did Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes change the memoir genre? (and more and more) From TLS, a review on the real Raymond Carver: How an editor’s pencil created an author’s literary style — and how an author’s wife has undone it. As a ghostwriter, Sandford Dody was expected to suppress his personality and channel the voice of the credited author, yet often his own writing style crept in. A review of The Wounded Animal: J.M. Coetzee & the Difficulty of Reality in Literature and Philosophy by Stephen Mulhal. Writers who drink are old hat, but what about writers who quit drinking? "Romance" is never a dirty word at Romance Writers of America conference. Here are the top 10 geeky things you don’t know about romance writers. A new subgenre has emerged in the escapist realm of romance novels: Gay love & lust, written by women for women. Home on the Range: Wade Rouse may be thought of as the gay love child of Henry David Thoreau and David Sedaris.

From the Journal of Third World Studies, Young-Choul Kim (Evansville) and Sangmook Lee (KRILA): Constitutional Designs and Democratization in the Third World; George Klay Kieh, Jr. (Ibadan): Reconstituting the Neocolonial State in Africa; and Marnia Lazreg (Hunter): The Colonial in the Global: Where Does the Third World Fit in? A high-stakes game of real-life Monopoly is leading to a modern colonialism to which many poor countries submit out of necessity. The Amazon’s indigenous groups regularly embrace technology, formal education, and modern healthcare — yet Western NGOs prefer a romanticized caricature. The world is bumpy: Joshua Kurlantzick on deglobalization and its dangers. Dani Rodrik on mercantilism, reconsidered. James Surowiecki reviews Ha-Joon Chang's Bad Samaritans. An interview with Paul Collier on how to help low-income countries during the current crisis. Where are the global problem solvers? Jeffrey Sachs wants to know. William Easterly on Jeffrey Sachs’ misguided African geography. Why we are less at risk of major famines today than in the past: An excerpt from Cormac O Grada's Famine: A Short History. Why geeks can save the world: The average person looks at disease victims in Africa and goes numb; Bill Gates looks at them and runs a moral algorithm.

A review of Rice's Architectural Primer by Matthew Rice. A review of On Architecture by Fred Rush. A review of Exploding the Myths of Modern Architecture by Malcolm Millais. A review of The Thinking Hand: Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture by Juhani Pallasmaa. An article on architects and their books. The Guggenheim Museum, turning 50 this year, showcases Frank Lloyd Wright's mission to elevate American society through architecture. Wright once defied "anyone to name a single aspect of the best contemporary architecture that wasn’t done first by" him — he had a point. Terence Riley reviews The Philip Johnson Tapes. Daniel Libeskind shares 17 words that underlie his vision for architecture. A look at the world's 18 strangest buildings — and why we love them. Grow your own skyscraper: Architects are designing structures made completely out of living trees. Towering beauty: Timber-framed buildings are a marvel of structural engineering. Why so few Japanese pagodas have ever fallen down. Postmodern pews: There's the devil to pay when a church gets stuck with a Modernist masterpiece. Mock medieval castles are scattered throughout the US — what inspires people to build them? (and more and more) Witold Rybczynski on the history and future of airport design.

Marko A. Rodriguez and Jennifer H. Watkins (LANL): Revisiting the Age of Enlightenment from a Collective Decision Making Systems Perspective. The truth about grit: Modern science builds the case for an old-fashioned virtue — and uncovers new secrets to success. From Policy Review, James Goldgeier on the decline of the honor culture: An old code becomes declasse. Conor Clarke interviews Kenneth Arrow (and part 2 and part 3). From TNR, Adrian Vermeule and Eric Posner review The Constitution in 2020. How is America going to end? The world's leading futurologists have four theories; and Slate's "Choose Your Own Apocalypse" lets you map out the death of the United States. From The New Yorker, the courthouse ring: Malcolm Gladwell on Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism; and Judith Thurman on the mother and daughter behind the Little House stories. The first chapter from The Empire of Trauma: An Inquiry into the Condition of Victimhood by Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman. The absence of alien probes visiting the solar system places severe limits on the number of advanced civilizations that could be exploring the galaxy. A Daily Beast investigation shows how conservative think tanks have quietly achieved domination over the opinion pages of America’s biggest papers.