World War II
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Those Kinds Of People are The Only People Here
Electric Literature posts a graduation speech from Vonnegut; he riffs on World War II, busboys, ambition, and suicide notes: A young woman told me a couple of years ago that she had applied for admission here. The man who interviewed…
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Slow and Steady
It took Gene Oishi 50 years to write his debut novel, a story about Japanese American identity and family during and after World War II. Over at The Nervous Breakdown, Oishi interviews himself about the process of writing Fox Drum…
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The Rumpus Interview with Brian Turner
Brian Turner discusses his new memoir, My Life as a Foreign Country, the Iraq War, poetry and prose, and his family’s long history of serving in the military.
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A Nation of Readers
At The Atlantic, Yori Applebaum chronicles a marketing tactic taken by American publishers in the midst of World War II. They sent free books to the troops overseas, succeeding in raising sales, Applebaum argues, by making a nation of readers.
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The Road to Heaven
She is a friend of my grandmother’s, and her name is Adiya Fields. She is a survivor of the camps and has volunteered to speak to my Sunday religious-school class.
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The Danger of Perspective
One fall morning, we rose before dawn and drove bleary-eyed with my friend’s father down still-silent streets to a field where, in the company of other enthusiasts, we hitched a patchwork vinyl blanket to a basket, turned on the heat,…
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A Former Nazi Tells Her Story
“She may have been the first German, and certainly the first German woman, who tried to face her past with honesty.” In a blog post for the New Yorker, Helen Epstein describes a remarkable memoir she has just reprinted at Plunkett…
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The History Of Nylon Stockings
The Smithsonian delves into the history of nylon stockings in their recent “Stocking Series.” Although these accessories may seem everyday and even out of fashion to us, the Smithsonian covers the mayhem surrounding the product’s introduction in the first installment of the series,…
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Saturday History Lesson: Flannery O’Connor and Betty Hester
Most people writing to their favorite authors do not, I’d guess, think they will get an answer back, and perhaps Betty Hester didn’t either.
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The Kingdom Within
In a new collection, Anthony Doerr lovingly explores the topography of the natural world and the shifting interior landscapes of memory.
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The House on Salt Hay Road
With a hurricane and a world war on the horizon, Carin Clevidence’s debut novel examines a Long Island family’s attempts to stave off disintegration.
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The Camera Never Lies
In Steve Amick’s new novel, desire is most effectively stoked by what you can’t see.