On Edwin O’Connor’s The Last Hurrah
/In his essay on a new reprint of Edwin O'Connor's great and indispensable novel of old-style American ward politics, Jack Beatty introduces readers to the serious comedy of The Last Hurrah.
Read MoreRequiem with Yellow Butterflies: The World Mourns García Márquez
/How do we memorialize a literary titan who shaped his own mythology? The story of legendary writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez gained its protean final chapter in the wave of obituaries after his death in 2014.
Read MoreA Question of Character
/In an entertaining new study of Sartre, Camus, de Beauvoir and company, the existentialist movement becomes a personality-driven piece of public performance.
Read MoreOrestes in Spandex
/Fifty years ago, a daring writer and a quirky artist created an offbeat character who became one of the most famous superheroes in the world. A look at the early days of Spider-Man.
Read MoreSame Bloody Rhythm
/A new book reminds us that good reporting on the Middle East is more important than ever, and more dangerous.
Read MoreApril and my Plastic Sunflowers
/a poem
Read MoreIncriminating Bits
/Maggie Nelson’s gripping revisionist memoir of a murder could be considered anti-narrative non-fiction: it at once participates in storytelling and critiques it.
Read MoreAgainst the Beautiful Moment
/You can set up a flash mob with Twitter, but you can't run a government with it; Jodi Dean's Crowds and Party looks at protests in the age of social media.
Read MoreInterior, with Music
/The tension between the material and the abstract creates the complex music that threads through Ben Mazer's new volume of poetry, The Glass Piano.
Read MoreIt’s a Mystery: “Good fortune rarely walks you out the door to your car”
/The 11th novel in Philip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series and the 2nd novel in John Lawton's Joe Wilderness series share plenty of thrills and character insights in common.
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