Laundry Laundry
Our cat, who's over nineteen, likes to sleep on the massed softness of a pile of shirts, two, three, four, flung on the floor but soon to be gathered up
Sep 20, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Rachel Hadas
Science Fiction Science Fiction
Richard Powers's The Echo Maker speaks volumes about neuroscience, nature and environmental degradation. But it says little about what it means to be alive.
Sep 20, 2006 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
Short Takes Short Takes
Reviews of Half of a Yellow Sun, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves and The City Is a Rising Tide.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Fatin Abbas and Christine Smallwood
As If I Had Become Happy As If I Had Become Happy
As if I had become happy: I went back. I pressed the doorbell more than once, and waited... (perhaps I am late. No one is opening the door, not a groan in the hallway).
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Mahmoud Darwish
Unnatural Disaster Unnatural Disaster
Three new books reappraise the massive earthquake of 1906, which was felt across an area of 400,000 miles and leveled much of San Francisco.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Ari Kelman
The Lives They Led The Lives They Led
Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children is a superb comedy of manners, a richly tragicomic view of three thirtysomething Ivy Leaguers in the days leading up to 9/11.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Kate Levin
The Illusionist The Illusionist
Alexander Stille's The Sack of Rome explores how Silvio Berlusconi subverted Italy's government, history and culture.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Tobias Jones
Music of My Mind Music of My Mind
John Gennari's Blowin' Hot and Cool looks at the intimate but fractious relationship between jazz luminaries and their critics.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Yaffe
Lying About 9/11? Easy as ABC Lying About 9/11? Easy as ABC
Why did the network humiliate its news division, ignore historians and insult Americans with a 9/11 docudrama that it knew was a tissue of lies?
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman
A Klatch of Civilizations A Klatch of Civilizations
As Survivor races to the bottom by dividing this season's contenders into race-based tribes, perhaps we can look to Starbucks for new models of how to blend in.
Sep 14, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams