The Emperor of Scent, by Chandler Burr. Luscious writing from Burr, and an outstanding lead in Luca Turin as he’s caught in the intrigues of the perfume industry and scientific…
At The Rumpus, we believe that a healthy literary culture is one which embraces writing of all kinds, by authors of all stripes – young and old, established and emerging, traditional and experimental, writing from the margins or from (or about) the heart of mainstream culture, published by “major” houses or by smaller presses.
Sometimes I separate the books I intend, one day, to read, into two groups: the Bookcase of Desire, and the Bookcase of Guilt. Desire is made up of anticipated pleasures,…
The name “Baltimore” can be traced to an Irish phrase meaning “Town of the Big House.” “Juárez,” when traced back to the Visigoths who overtook Spain in the 5th Century AD,…
I fall in love with books all the time. I remember periods of my life this way – like “what’s-his-name left me when I was reading Mrs. Dalloway” or “I…
Tamim Ansary is the author of West of Kabul, East of New York and the forthcoming book Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes. He is also…
My assertion is that you will not have read a novel quite like Madeleine is Sleeping because I hadn’t, until I read it. A young girl jerks off the local…
The last book I loved was Roberto Bolano’s 2666. His powers as a narrator are staggering. His abilities to both deconstruct the novel, while also somehow meeting the brutality and…
I happen to agree that Watchmen (the graphic novel, not the movie) deserves its slot in the canon as one of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. But…