Books and Ideas

On John McCain’s Willingness to Speak at Jerry Falwell’s University On John McCain’s Willingness to Speak at Jerry Falwell’s University

What it takes to make him change his mind.

May 25, 2006 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Keeping It Real Keeping It Real

In Songs of Experience, Martin Jay examines modern debates over the relationship between theory and the lived world.

May 24, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Jackson Lears

Anatomy of a Murder Anatomy of a Murder

Cynthia Carr's Our Town seeks to uncover hidden truths about a 1930 lynching in small-town Indiana. But Carr fails to break the code of silence that many of the town's inhabitants,...

May 24, 2006 / Books & the Arts / David Bradley

In Theory In Theory

In Frontiers of Justice, philosopher Martha Nussbaum explores our moral obligations to the disabled, to nonhuman animals and to the unresolved areas of international law.

May 18, 2006 / Books & the Arts / John Gray

Supersize Misha Supersize Misha

Absurdistan is a stunning encore for novelist Gary Shteyngart, both the avatar of a new Jewish-American literature and an inveterate Eastern European trickster.

May 18, 2006 / Books & the Arts / J. Hoberman

Dead Souls Dead Souls

Juan Rulfo's Pedro Páramo, written during the cultural renaissance that followed the Mexican Revolution, is a marvel of storytelling and testament to the power of the word.

May 18, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Carmen Boullosa

Reassurance on Phone Call Records… Reassurance on Phone Call Records…

Don't worry. Just trust them.

May 18, 2006 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Woman Warrior Woman Warrior

Iran Awakening is the memoir of Shirin Ebadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle to hold Iran's clerical regime accountable for its gross human rights violation...

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Reza Aslan

Zones of Disengagement Zones of Disengagement

In Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Stefan Collini encapsulates the paradoxes that dominate discussion of the English cultural landscape.

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Richard Vinen

The Book of Daniels The Book of Daniels

Michel Houellebecq's The Possibility of an Island has at last landed on American shores, along with Pierre Mérot's Mammals.

May 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Christine Smallwood

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