Quiz - March 2011
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“He had become my Tarzan”
/Tarzan is one of the most popular fictional creations in modern times. Does the Ape Man define something essential in the human experience - or do we keep redefining Tarzan to suit our ever-changing needs?
Read MoreA False Quarrel
/The Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems depressingly intractable, an impasse without end. A new book offers a hypothetical solution, but is it foolish idealism, unworkable pragmatism - or a desperately innovative kind of hope?
Read MoreOut of Sorts
/Books have been with us for thousands of years, and books about books for very nearly that long. The world of books teems with themes, and in the latest massive Oxford Companion, that world receives a bestiary with hopes of being definitive.
Read MoreThe Sad Flaneuse
/The slim body of work of the late New York poet Rachel Wetzsteon skips the faux-Horatian filigree in favor of an unsentimental depiction of modern life and contradictory emotion. And yet, her poems are both outspoken and intimate, and Manhattan is her Rome. Horace might have been flattered after all.
Read MoreA Light on the Ground
/The myth of idyllic rural America dies hard, but the scourges of modern society have long since struck the heartland, including the scourge of drug addiction and drug trafficking. A recent book explores the darkness at the edge of town.
Read More“My Job Is to Be King"
/When the long reign of Victoria ended, her son took the throne with a bonhomie the country hadn't seen in a century. The new king ate and entertained prodigiously - and mediated prodigiously as "the uncle of Europe." A Year with the Windsors looks at Edward VII.
Read MoreOpen to Love
/"I find that you can get someone to do something outlandish that they would never normally do if you ask them in public as if it's the most normal request ever." -- a talk with cover artist Rebecca Vaughan
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Time ages a person’s soul”
/Irma Heldman reviews Taylor Stevens' "The Informationist" and concludes that not since "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has there been a debut novel like it
Read MoreBodies in Space
/Isaac Newton wrote about bodies at rest and bodies in motion - but he never got around to bodies that want to rip you apart with their tentacles and feast on your steaming entrails! A classic video game gets a macabre and highly detailed sequel.
Read MoreMay the Devil Be His Companion
/There was talk that Elizabeth I might make her favorite, Robert Dudley, king - if he weren't already married. When he wife suddenly died, court and country cried foul, and an immortal mystery was born: what really happened to Amy Robsart?
Read MoreMarch 2011 Issue
/"Celestial Navigation" by Peter Illig and Rebecca Vaughan
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