What Is There To Say?
A lot of people are good at quick reactions to the kind of day we had yesterday. I’m not. I mean, of course, I had the usual thoughts. Ban the…
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Michelle Dean
74 posts
Michelle Dean has written for a variety of places, including The Awl, ELLE and Bitch.
When Publishers Had A Sense of Humor
There was once a time when we thought of the book industry as less under siege. In that time, people were more prone to pulling the legs of the powers…
“Don’t Do It For Money”?
This week an article about the 1962-63 newspaper strike was everywhere. The Vanity Fair piece is very good, pointing out that the strike opened up career possibilities for many of…
Used Books
1. The people who fret over the Future of the Book talk about the loss of the tactile, of the physical act of holding the book. Me, the only thing…
Speaking of the World We Live In
People in Gaza are dying in it, and an invasion may happen by the end of the weekend. I try never to write about things I would be talking out…
Go Out And Buy Kate Boo’s Book Immediately
The other night, when Katherine Boo’s Behind the Beautiful Forevers won the National Book Award for nonfiction, a couple of friends emailed and tweeted at me immediately, because I’d been…
“But it’s John Updike in particular that a lot of them seem to hate.”
Upon Philip Roth’s sorta-kinda retirement announcement (my sense is that nothing’s final until everyone is dead) we have been treated to encomia online, and renewed calls that he be given…
The Man Behind the Faulkner Estate
Now here’s a nightmare most writers never contemplate: imagine that it’s years after you have died, and joined the pantheon of literary greats in absentia, and are so renowned that…
The Frankenstorm and H.P. Lovecraft
I’d suppose we all need no greater horror story this weekend than the prospect of a Mitt Romney presidency, or of the emergence of yet another Republican who has bizarre…
On the Comfort of Bad Books
At last weekend’s New Yorker festival, Salman Rushdie ventured the opinion that the inexplicably popular 50 Shades of Grey “made Twilight look like War and Peace.” I don’t like Twilight, I’ve never read 50 Shades of Grey, and still some defensive…
Nadya Labi’s New Yorker Feature
You will thank me for telling you to run to your nearest newsstand to purchase last week’s New Yorker before it disappears. It contains a remarkable reported story by Nadya Labi…