Antoine Volodine’s Army of Avatars Antoine Volodine’s Army of Avatars
Is there any other writer whose work is as strange and hermetic and gloriously, painfully appropriate to the unparalleled shittiness of our times?
Sep 7, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ben Ehrenreich
Several Types of William Empson Several Types of William Empson
A lost study of Buddhist art reveals a hidden side of a great literary critic.
Sep 6, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Chenxin Jiang
Behind the Sun Behind the Sun
In four books about Syria and Egypt, the narrative arc of revolution bends toward disappointment.
Sep 6, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ursula Lindsey
Notes From Many Years Notes From Many Years
Helen Gurley Brown’s ideas about women were often as retrograde as the ones she claimed to fight. Why is she still appealing?
Sep 1, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Madeleine Schwartz
A Summer Blockbuster From the Trump World A Summer Blockbuster From the Trump World
Loud, lurid, incoherent, Suicide Squad seems to emanate straight from the Republican’s campaign for president.
Aug 26, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Captivity Captivity
If it’s Yuletide in the New World, then what bellies up to the manger are rattler, gator, buzzard. Just as a wooden snake in a basket of toys at this barber shop I bring the boys s…
Aug 25, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Ange Mlinko
Thomas Struth’s Post-Internet Art Thomas Struth’s Post-Internet Art
His pictures generate a perceptual confusion that might best represent where we stand with technology today.
Aug 23, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Ghostly Presences Ghostly Presences
Unable to write effectively but unable to remain silent, W.G. Sebald, like the narrator of The Emigrants, is condemned to speak unsatisfactorily.
Aug 17, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Becca Rothfeld
Naming America’s Own Genocide Naming America’s Own Genocide
In a commanding new book, Benjamin Madley calls California’s 19th-century elected officials “the primary architects of annihilation” against Native Americans in the state. Reading ...
Aug 17, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Richard White
Will the Public Internet Survive? Will the Public Internet Survive?
For Scott Malcomson, the Web is slowly being redefined according to the old political maps of nation-states.
Aug 11, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Tekendra Parmar