The Best Intentions The Best Intentions
Syriana disappoints; The Boys of Baraka documents the lives of inner-city kids transported to the wild beauty of Africa; and Punishment Park zeroes in on injustice in America.
Nov 22, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Secret History of Rum The Secret History of Rum
Long before oil dominated geopolitics, rum was the original global commodity, tying Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean in a complex web of trade and credit. And Bacardi...
Nov 22, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams
Succès de Scandale Succès de Scandale
American readers have long felt guilty about loving Lolita. As Vladimir Nabokov's nymphet heroine turns 50, Lila Azam Zanganeh traces the impact of a novel that has become both an ...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Lila Azam Zanganeh
The Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel
Jerome Charyn's Savage Shorthand: The Life and Death of Isaac Babel examines the life the revolutionary idealist murdered by Stalin in 1940 and explodes the literary myths that hav...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Lee Siegel
The Dying Animal The Dying Animal
Gabriel García Márquez's new novella begins as an autobiography, but the passion-filled story of an old man, mad with love and clinging to life, weaves Marquez's othe...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Michael Wood
Mystic River Mystic River
Amartya Sen's latest collection of essays explores the rich flow of various peoples in and out of India and how they shaped the politics and spirituality of the nation today.
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Tariq Ali
All About My Mother All About My Mother
The Caribbean island of Vieques is a fitting setting for Captain of the Sleepers, Cuban novelist Mayra Montero's engrossing story premised on violations of the dead.
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Kate Levin
Profane Illuminations Profane Illuminations
New biographies of Rousseau and Voltaire help us appreciate how very fragile the eighteenth century's great movement of ideas was, and how remarkable it is that the Enlightenment n...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell
Don’t Criticize Me Don’t Criticize Me
Karl Rove and his Singing Slimemeisters riff You Go To My Head.
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Calvin Trillin
President Thelma President Thelma
Is Commander-in-Chief softening up the country for President Hillary? Americans may not not be ready to put a woman in the White House, but they may have calmed down enough to cont...
Nov 17, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Richard Goldstein