The Magic of Reading Bernard Malamud The Magic of Reading Bernard Malamud
His work, unlike that of Bellow or Roth, focused on the lives of often impoverished Jews in Brooklyn and the Bronx and bestowed on them a literary magic.
Feb 20, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick
The Unanswered Questions of “True Detective” The Unanswered Questions of “True Detective”
Like a Raymond Chandler detective story, Night Country ultimately wants to turn its audience’s attention away from the mysteries of the dead toward those of the living.
Feb 19, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jorge Cotte
What Happened to the Democratic Majority? What Happened to the Democratic Majority?
Today the march of class dealignment feels like an inexorable fact of American political life. But is it?
Feb 19, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Matthew Karp
The Bad Politics of Good Taste The Bad Politics of Good Taste
Nathalie Olah’s exploration of the ethics of tastefulness dissects the class-bounded nature of most social and cultural mores.
Feb 15, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Lauren Kelly
Why Billionaires Are Obsessed With the Apocalypse Why Billionaires Are Obsessed With the Apocalypse
In Survival of the Richest, Douglas Rushkoff gets to the bottom of the tech oligarchy’s fixation on protecting themselves from the end times.
Feb 14, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jared Marcel Pollen
Helen Garner’s Alienating Domesticity Helen Garner’s Alienating Domesticity
In her novel The Children’s Bach, the Australian writer conjures a relentless portrait of the comforts and restrictions of family life.
Feb 12, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Isabella Trimboli
The Many Lives of George Eliot The Many Lives of George Eliot
A new biography examines how the novelist chose to make her life, as well as her fiction and art, outside the conventions of the marriage plot.
Feb 8, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Francesca Wade
In the Streets of Rome With Pier Paolo Pasolini In the Streets of Rome With Pier Paolo Pasolini
His bracing debut novel, Boys Alive, documents the hard and loose lives of vagabonds in the Italian capital’s underbelly.
Feb 7, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jack Hanson
Has Cuba Met the End of History? Has Cuba Met the End of History?
In Cubanthropy, the critic Iván de la Nuez traces how the island nation and its diaspora shoulder the legacy of the revolution.
Feb 6, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Miriam Pensack
The Century of Milton Friedman The Century of Milton Friedman
An interview with Jennifer Burns on her authoritative new biography of the American economist and the personal and intellectual origins of his theories.
Feb 5, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins