Dirt Dogs and Jinegar: Baseball’s Slang Dirt Dogs and Jinegar: Baseball’s Slang
The richness of baseball's old, weird vernacular is pure, pointless creativity.
May 13, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Nick Stillman
Last Man Standing: On Clint Eastwood Last Man Standing: On Clint Eastwood
A callous vigilante and sentimental old fogy, Clint Eastwood has become indivisible from his myth.
May 13, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Akiva Gottlieb
A Million Little Pictures: The Pictures Generation Revisited A Million Little Pictures: The Pictures Generation Revisited
Do images understand us, the Pictures generation asked, more than we understand them?
May 13, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Into the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis’s Narnia
Laura Miller's study of C.S. Lewis falls short of providing a coherent theory of Narnia's magic.
May 6, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Jordan Davis
Red Harvest: The KGB in America Red Harvest: The KGB in America
A new book on cold war espionage falsely accuses I.F. Stone of being a paid Soviet agent.
May 6, 2009 / Books & the Arts / D.D. Guttenplan
The Going The Going
The cloth edge of certainty has shredded down to this: God and love are real, but very far away. If I go to Istanbul, will I return? That is not one of the permitted questions. When I go to Istanbul, how will I bear to return? I could slip into the small streets that lead away from the souk, then run east to the high plain and the Caucasus-- It's all alone, the returning, the going. The cloth, a soft holland whose blocks of blue and lemon once cheered me in a skirt, now dries dishes. God and love are very far away, farther even than the mountains in the east.
May 6, 2009 / Books & the Arts / April Bernard
A Vigorous, Quiet Revolt: Things Fall Apart At Fifty A Vigorous, Quiet Revolt: Things Fall Apart At Fifty
Published fifty years ago, Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart mounted a literary rebellion against the everyday amalgamations and condescension that treat Africa as an undiffere...
May 4, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Howard W. French
Pure Cinema: New Films by Celan, Zonca and Jarmusch Pure Cinema: New Films by Celan, Zonca and Jarmusch
Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Three Monkeys, Erick Zonca's Julia, Jim Jarmusch's The Limits of Control.
Apr 29, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
Chronicle of a Death Foretold: Georgi Stoev’s Gangster Pulp Chronicle of a Death Foretold: Georgi Stoev’s Gangster Pulp
Georgi Stoev plundered his past in the Bulgarian mob to write a series of popular pulp novels. The mob found them good enough for him to die for.
Apr 29, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Dimiter Kenarov
Farewell, the American Century Farewell, the American Century
In order to solve our problems Americans must begin to see ourselves as we really are.
Apr 28, 2009 / Books & the Arts / Andrew J. Bacevich