Recent Articles
February 18, 2009
Mary, Je T’Aime: Literary Portraits 12
by Emily Colette Wilkinson
Like more conventional forms of romance, the first great literary love of my life began with a look. Young readers of Playboy have similar experiences, I believe, with centerfolds: a precise moment – the turning of a page to reveal a face (more likely a body) that haunts the young man for the rest of [...]
February 17, 2009
Literature in Lieu of the Tour Guide: Fiction (and Non) to Take on Vacation 21
by Kevin Hartnett
On the last Sunday in November, book critic Adam Begley scooped Frank Rich and Maureen Dowd for the top spot in the New York Times most emailed list. Not with a review though. Instead, he wrote an excellent piece about Florence for the travel section, in which he recommended E.M. Forster’s Room with a View [...]
February 17, 2009
From the Newsstand: Michael Lewis on Shane Battier 0
by Garth Risk Hallberg
We at The Millions are fans of great sports journalism and of Michael Lewis, so recommending Lewis’ New York Times Magazine feature on Houston Rockets forward Shane Battier is a no-brainer. The hook: Here we have a basketball mystery: a player is widely regarded inside the N.B.A. as, at best, a replaceable cog in a [...]
February 16, 2009
Diagramming the Obama Sentence 55
by Garth Risk Hallberg
In a Slate piece published back in the fall, Kitty Burns Florey took on the unenviable task of diagramming the utterances of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Florey, the author of Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog, clearly has a unusual predilection for sentence diagramming (which I’m pretty sure the Army Field Manual prohibits as a form [...]
February 15, 2009
Los Angeles is for Writers 1
by Edan Lepucki
The Association for Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) met in Chicago this week for their annual conference and book fair. Tin House was there. Granta was there. Every university press known to mankind was there. One Story delivered valentines, and Avery offered lollipops. Many, many writers showed up to network, get ideas, and press the [...]
February 15, 2009
Curiosities: No Glamour in Publishing 0
by Editor
Want to catch up on John Updike in a single summer? Dick Cavett reminisces about the time Updike and John Cheever appeared on his talk show… together. Clancy Martin on his failed attempt to become the world’s largest maker of Fauxbergé eggs and how he evaded the Russian police. Ward Sutton literalizes the idea of [...]