Books and Ideas

What Are They Reading? What Are They Reading?

In the midst of a wicked winter, I like to curl up with some sultry nature writing. My father instilled in me a fascination with the natural world.

Mar 9, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Teresa Stack

My Dinner With Aleksander My Dinner With Aleksander

In 1964 an important if somewhat obscure Polish writer and public intellectual named Aleksander Wat arrived at the University of California, Berkeley, and began the work that wou...

Mar 4, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Paloff

The Pleasures of Crime The Pleasures of Crime

Despite their indifference to genre fiction, American publishers of literary novels have consistently made exceptions for homegrown crime writers.

Feb 26, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Hillary Frey

The End of the Affair The End of the Affair

It's been a while since Cuba, that caiman-shaped Caribbean isle, ceased to be a place on the map.

Feb 26, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Achy Obejas

The Wages of Fear The Wages of Fear

Lyndon Johnson launched the War on Poverty in his State of the Union Message exactly forty years ago.

Feb 26, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Katherine S. Newman

The Last Emperors The Last Emperors

If Winston Churchill is today the icon of an American right that denounced the "appeasement" of Iraq, Charles de Gaulle is the inspiration for some of those who continue to urge ...

Feb 19, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Richard Vinen

Brown Like Me? Brown Like Me?

The Iowa Brown and Black Forum.

Feb 19, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ed Morales

What Are They Reading? What Are They Reading?

John Hess, who, it should be said, is one of The Nation's oldest friends and severest critics, once complained to me about an "editor's choice" blurb I'd written, which containe...

Feb 18, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Richard Lingeman

Killing Time Killing Time

From its unification in 1871 until its comprehensive defeat in 1945, Germany was the most bellicose and nationalistic of modern countries.

Feb 12, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel

Company Man Company Man

The name Shakespeare in Britain is rather like the names Ford, Disney and Rockefeller in the United States. He is less an individual than an institution, less an artist than an a...

Feb 12, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Terry Eagleton

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