Shelf Life Shelf Life
Dave Eggers’s The Circle; Richard Powers’s Orfeo
Mar 18, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Aaron Thier
Dread and Wonder Dread and Wonder
The unflinching fiction of Ludmilla Petrushevskaya.
Mar 5, 2014 / Books & the Arts / William Deresiewicz
This Week in ‘Nation’ History: How We Helped Start the ‘Melville Revival’ of the 1920s This Week in ‘Nation’ History: How We Helped Start the ‘Melville Revival’ of the 1920s
An article in our pages in 1919 helped rescue the long-deceased scribe from obscurity and secured him a prominent place in the American canon.
Jan 4, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel
This Week in ‘Nation’ History: 100 Years of Writing About Marcel Proust’s ‘Almost Wizard Power’ This Week in ‘Nation’ History: 100 Years of Writing About Marcel Proust’s ‘Almost Wizard Power’
Proust, a reviewer wrote in 1921, “may not be what his hero set out to be in his childhood, the greatest writer in the world, but he is one of those.”
Dec 7, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist The Notorious Life of a Nineteenth-Century Abortionist
Novelist Kate Manning richly reimagines Madame Restell as a defender of women from the horrors of poverty, male privilege and their own physiology.
Oct 9, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Katha Pollitt
Imagine: On J.M Coetzee Imagine: On J.M Coetzee
The Childhood of Jesus explores the fictitious dimensions of a just and compassionate world.
Sep 24, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Laila Lalami
Dispatches from the Front: On Narconovelas Dispatches from the Front: On Narconovelas
All wars have their bards, and Mexico’s ongoing narco wars are no exception.
Jul 31, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Jorge Volpi
This Week in ‘Nation’ History: Reviewers Have Argued About ‘Gatsby’ Since 1925 This Week in ‘Nation’ History: Reviewers Have Argued About ‘Gatsby’ Since 1925
The debate surrounding Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation is nothing new.
May 18, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel
Adler’s Way Adler’s Way
The slowly panic-making power of Renata Adler’s novels Speedboat and Pitch Dark.
May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz
Adventures in Neurohumanities Adventures in Neurohumanities
Applying neuroscience to the study of literature is fashionable. But is it the best way to read a novel?
May 8, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alissa Quart