With J.D. Salinger, how can we separate the author from his writing? And now that he's dead, should we even try?
I have written about J.D. Salinger elsewhere in these pages, but his recent death prompts me to think about another angle: the myth of the Salinger-author. That Salinger was a recluse colors our reading of his work. What does...
How we can help Haiti move forward, through understanding.
By now we all realize that poverty, not just the Richter Scale, contributed to the devastation in Haiti. Even after donating to the relief effort, many of us feel helpless as we sit comfortably in safety and privilege. How might we continue to help? Well, once the...
How Kate Roiphe silenced a serious discussion about sexism.
We should be past this by now—it's 2010—but it appears the question of sexism amongst book readers, writers, publishers, and award-givers is not yet moot. The last month has seen a flurry of activity on the issue.
In early December, Publisher’s Weekly listed the...
Ten years of literary innovation, fudged memoirs, and digital reading.
The Aughts saw the birth of readerly social networking, a flowering of graphic novels, and a bunch of faked memoirs. Books about health and food contributed to larger policy and behavioral changes for many Americans, and foreigners writing experimental...
A holiday shout-out to the Tudors, independent magazines, and charitable giving.
I have been going through a Tudor phase. It started when I mainlined the most extraordinary novel I have read this year, Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning Wolf Hall, which tells the story of Thomas Cromwell, a commoner who went on to advise Henry VIII...
What we don't know about early America
Sometimes I think my conception of Revolutionary America was imprinted on my brain by Schoolhouse Rock, specifically “No More Kings.” Rocking and a’ rolling over the horizon from England to America, dumping tea (“that’s called Taxation Without Representation, and that’s not fair”), and...
Halloween + Literature = Edgar Allan Poe, right?
If you would like to get to know the author better this weekend, you have an astounding number of options, as there are restored Poe houses in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City (the Bronx), and Richmond, Virginia. And if that phrase—“The Poe Houses”—sounds odd, then go...
What could we gain by abandoning the test's timed essay? Better writers.
“Although most people’s goal is to be happy at all times, being constantly satisfied and untroubled can actually prevent people from changing for the better. After all, why go to the trouble of changing if one is content with the ways things are? On the...
Is the combination question mark and exclamation point a sign of the times?
On Monday I discovered the interrobang, and I have been thinking about it all week. And no, not because I am a grammar nerd, but because I think ‽ may just sum up something about our clever yet confused culture.
The interrobang is a combination of...
Richards Powers wrote his new novel by dictation. Does that affect the quality?
Richard Powers’ new novel, Generosity, was published this week. I am a huge fan of Powers, and I loved the novel. But not all had the same reaction. James Wood wrote a lengthy article critiquing Powers and his latest novel in this week’s New...
