The Critical Imagination The Critical Imagination
James Wood, the ferociously intelligent critic whose reviews appear regularly in The New Republic and the London Review of Books, has single-handedly done a great deal to impro...
Jun 12, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Brian Morton
The Last Mogul The Last Mogul
Lew Wasserman, who died last summer at 89, was not only the most powerful and influential man in Hollywood over the past half-century but also the most enigmatic.
Jun 12, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Schatz
Wrestling With Augie March Wrestling With Augie March
Editor's Note: With Leonard Kriegel's meditation on Saul Bellow's 1953 novel The Adventures of Augie March, we introduce a series of occasional essays revisiting classic works of l...
Jun 5, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Leonard Kriegel
The Believer The Believer
A reader knowing nothing of the 1990s might well come away from Sidney Blumenthal's lengthy account of The Clinton Wars with the impression that for eight years, Bill and Hilla...
Jun 5, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Tom Wicker
A Chef in Love A Chef in Love
As the bombs cease falling on Baghdad, and the world argues over an American presence in Iraq, the publication of Diana Abu-Jaber's funny, thoughtful second novel, Crescent, se...
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Charlotte Innes
The Unrepentant Modernist The Unrepentant Modernist
Near the end of Parallels and Paradoxes, a recent collection of dialogues on music and society between the conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, music director of the Chicago...
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Russell Platt
Briefly Noted Briefly Noted
THE QUALITY OF LIFE REPORT: A Novel. By Meghan Daum. Viking. 309 pp. $24.95.
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
The Holy Land The Holy Land
During the harsh New York City winter of 1909-10, 20,000 garment workers marched and picketed to win recognition of their union.
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Michael Kazin
When Poetry Was the Rage When Poetry Was the Rage
"That was a benefit shooting." So said a shaken Kenneth Koch to a stunned audience seconds after a tall, scraggly man fired a pistol at him on January 10, 1968.
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / John Palattella
¡Que Viva Mexico! ¡Que Viva Mexico!
For years it was one of those intriguing asterisk marks in many a great writer's career--a book that might have been but wasn't.
May 29, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Sarah Kerr