“Amazon.com is watching you.”
Amazon, we’re still mad at you. Last week, the company once again stirred waves of customer indignation when it remotely deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm from…
Features & Reviews
9212 posts
Why We Need Vampires
In the New York Times today, filmmaker and author Guillermo del Toro and coauthor Chuck Hogan –they have a novel coming out called The Strain — write about how vampires…
Roald Dahl, Man of Letters
I have read Kafka’s letters and Flaubert’s letters and Jane Austen’s letters. These authors are a part of my “adult” life. But I haven’t read the letters of authors who…
Nicholson Baker Tries Kindle, Finds it Wanting
If you know anything about Nicholson Baker, you know that he has an unparalleled talent for describing the small and ordinary things in everyday life, their textures and surfaces and…
Fingers Through Holy Water
Gospel music, like its secular cousin the blues, never wallows in pity, but instead seeks to transcend pain and reach glory. Bashir’s book makes the same trip.
Why Books Are Stupid
Elissa Bassist recently wrote a piece extolling the virtues of books. She suggests the good ones “can make life manageable” and turn a bad day into a good one. But…
Great Authors’ Syllabi
When I think about good books, I think about this: -Never read a bad book/book you don’t like 50 pages in; it’s wasteful. -You will die someday; read accordingly. -Reading…
The Rumpus Interview with Jonathan Ames
Maybe my work isn’t a cry for help. It may just be a baby’s need to cry or a dog’s need to bark.
Vollmann’s ‘Imperial’ country
William T. Vollmann, the author whose exhaustive research helps to blur the line between fiction and nonfiction, and whose books tend to be measured by the pound, has a new…
The Rumpus Interview with Sam Anderson
“An ideal, awesome job,”—that’s how Sam Anderson, at several points in our conversation, describes his position as book critic for New York Magazine.
Bait and Switch
Like a well-planned itinerary, the blueprints of James Lasdun’s stories are thoughtfully delineated, and each step feels purposeful and sure.
Dave Eggers: The Last Book I Loved, Destiny Disrupted
I’m in the middle of Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes, and it’s incredibly illuminating. Ansary pretty much covers the entire history of Islam in…