Books and Ideas

Listing Left, Listing Right Listing Left, Listing Right

Devotees of "balanced," "objective," "fair" and "evenhanded" nonfiction--well, they be hurtin' in these early days of the twenty-first century. Enough, perhaps, to demand that sel...

May 2, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Carlin Romano

The Wonder Years The Wonder Years

Since this is going to be a story about sex and children, let's start with a bit of groping in the priests' chamber. I must have been 12. My confederates and I, all suited out ...

May 2, 2002 / Books & the Arts / JoAnn Wypijewski

A ‘Thirst for the Divine’ A ‘Thirst for the Divine’

Charles Wright and Charles Simic count among the best poets of their generation. Each career has unfolded with considerable excitement for serious readers of contemporary poetry, ...

May 2, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Jay Parini

The Torturer’s Apprentice The Torturer’s Apprentice

Alan Dershowitz prides himself on his credentials as a civil libertarian, and to judge by most of the essays in his latest book, Shouting Fire: Civil Liberties in a Turbulent A...

Apr 25, 2002 / Books & the Arts / William F. Schulz

Discovery/The Nation ’02 Prizewinners Discovery/The Nation ’02 Prizewinners

The Nation announces the winners of Discovery/ The Nation, the Joan Leiman Jacobson Poetry Prize. Now in its twenty-eighth year, it is an annual contest for poets whose work ha...

Apr 25, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Various Poets

Ghost Buster Ghost Buster

To immerse oneself in Robert Caro's heroic biographies is to come face to face with a shocking but unavoidable realization: Much of what we think we know about money, power and p...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Eric Alterman

Education of a Knife Education of a Knife

The third-year medical student held the intravenous catheter, poised to insert it into a patient's vein. Suddenly the patient asked, "Have you done this before?" As the student la...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Barron H. Lerner

Big Food’s Real Appetites Big Food’s Real Appetites

More than the much-reviled products of Big Tobacco, big helpings and Big Food constitute the number-one threat to America's children, especially when the fare is helpings of fats,...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Ian Williams

The Loneliest Road The Loneliest Road

Late in the evening in back-road America you tend to pick the motels with a few cars parked in front of the rooms. There's nothing less appealing than an empty courtyard, with ma...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Alexander Cockburn

Sensation Sensation

A friend and I were sitting around commiserating about the things that get to us: unloading small indignities, comparing thorns. "So there I was," she said, "sitting on the bus a...

Apr 18, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Patricia J. Williams

x