Books and Ideas

Love in the Ruins Love in the Ruins

Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française, published fifty-two years after she perished at Auschwitz, offers an unsparing critique of France under the German occupati...

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Alice Kaplan

Dead Man Dead Man

Philip Roth's Everyman is a contemporary morality play that explores the author's obsessions with health and virility, ecstasy and betrayal, and the certainty and solitude of death...

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz

Laughter in the Dark Laughter in the Dark

New translations of novels by exiled authors Roberto Bolaño and Ismail Kadare explore the bloody crossroads where literature, politics and self-absorption converge.

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / John Banville

The Great Decider The Great Decider

A doo-wop ditty, performed by the decider-in-chief.

May 11, 2006 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Bonding With the Babe Bonding With the Babe

Bashing Barry Bonds has become a national sport, as the flawed slugger nears matching Babe Ruth's record. But hasn't anyone considered the faults of the Babe?

May 8, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Dave Zirin

Love Letters Love Letters

Richard Lingeman's Double Lives explores the richness of friendships between such literary lions as Hawthorne and Melville, Hemingway and Fitzgerald, and Kerourac, Ginsberg and Cas...

May 4, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Ruth Baldwin

On the Corner On the Corner

Times Square may be the most dynamic urban space of the twentieth century, but you wouldn't know it from reading Marshall Berman's On the Town.

May 4, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Margolick

On Native Grounds On Native Grounds

Alan Taylor's Divided Ground examines how land-grabbing settlers destroyed Indian society and how postrevolutionary politicians speeded their demise.

May 4, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Lazare

Cheney at the Pump Cheney at the Pump

Why should anyone be surprised that Dick Cheney's good oil boys are making out like bandits?

May 4, 2006 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Sloppy Seconds Sloppy Seconds

The plagiarism flap over Opal Mehta is essentially a story about clichés and stereotypes passing from one subliterary commercial product to another.

May 4, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

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