From New York, Manhattan is the capital of people living by themselves, but are New Yorkers lonelier? Far from it, say a new breed of loneliness researchers, who argue that urban alienation is largely a myth. John Cacioppo, author of Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection, on technology and loneliness. The Undying Animal: Morris Dickstein reminds us why literature still matters. The Web Guru: As media shatters, Jeff Jarvis is the ideologue seer of the New Age. Grey sky thinking: A review of books on British weather. Carlin Romano reviews books on sex addiction: Ooh! Aah! Eek! Ugh. Zzzz. Ooh! From The Global Spiral, the postmodern condition as a religious revival: A review of William Connolly’s Why I am Not a Secularist, Dipesh Chakrabarty’s Provincializing Europe, and Alvin Plantinga’s Warranted Christian Belief; and is science the only sure path to truth? An excerpt from The Big Questions in Science and Religion by Keith Ward. Charles Homas on the Last Secrets of the Bush Administration: How to find out what we still don't know. From U. of Chicago Press, an interview with Lennard J. Davis, author of Obsession: A History (and a review); an excerpt from Patty’s Got a Gun Patricia Hearst in 1970s America by William Graebner; and an excerpt from Autophobia: Love and Hate in the Automotive Age by Brian Ladd.
