June 2012
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The Death (and Rebirth?) of the Book Review
Why review books? At The Awl, Jane Hu takes a historical approach to answering that question. Quoting writers from Alexander Pope to Jonathan Franzen, Hu argues that the apparently ever-progressing “death” of the book review is perhaps a more nuanced…
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Occupy Nation by Todd Gitlin
What hath the OWS movement wrought? Depends on who you ask. Naysayers, including most Republicans and Rupert Murdoch’s various media organs, will tell you that OWS created nothing but trouble, violence, a disruption of the peace, and distraction from key issues. The…
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The Latest Diary of Adrian Mole, Coming of (Middle) Age
Adrian Mole, protagonist of the coming-of-age novels The Adrian Mole Diaries, faces adult problems in Sue Townsend’s latest book, the 10th in the series. “Having had his first incarnation aged 13 ¾, when spots, poetry and his parents’ behavior were among…
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“I’m a highway and landscapes. You’re a city and painted bricks and lots of people.”
New Yorker columnist Ben Greenman has transcribed bits of an interview that took place at this year’s BookExpo America between Patti Smith and Neil Young, on the subject of Young’s forthcoming memoir Waging Heavy Peace. Smith, whose own 2010 memoir…
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Dan Weiss’s Morning Coffee
Whoa: “Then everything will be frozen, like a snapshot of one instant, for ever.” Aliens of yore. The Story of Stuff looks to change. The first alternative-fuel gas station has arrived.
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The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Henkin
Joshua Henkin’s new, forceful novel, The World Without You, draws some of its power from this peculiar disconnect between the personal and the national.
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E-Books: “the book-cover equivalent of burqas”
In the Chicago Tribune, Christopher Borrelli bemoans the rise of e-books for taking away “the genuine soul” that “the randomness and variety and art work of a tangible book being cradled by a commuter” lends to the city. Plus, it…
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Clarice Lispector
“But what if there were no one around with whom to reach an agreement about the meaning of a word? What if the thing you’re trying to express can’t really be understood by anyone else?” Sarah Gerard looks at Wittgenstein,…
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Library Lamentations
“A library is a different kind of social reality (of the three dimensional kind), which by its very existence teaches a system of values beyond the fiscal.” How do we value libraries? Novelist Zadie Smith writes an essay about the…
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Imperfect Heroes
“I learned from my political experiences that I am a writer, not a politician. Part of the reasons I have lived the life I have is because I wanted to have an adventurous life. But my best adventures are more…
