Recent Articles
March 23, 2012
From word nerd to language animal 1
by Emily M. Keeler
David Mitchell, when questioned about his language and genre experiments, particularly in Cloud Atlas and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, responds: “It’s a bit like asking a duck billed platypus if it should be considered a mammal or a bird.” The Millions also profiled Mitchell, though we never settled either way on the [...]
March 23, 2012
The Story of Us, A People in Exile: On The New American Haggadah 1
by Jessica Freeman-Slade
Contrasting voices bring out the multitudes of questions and quandaries inherent in the Passover story, and by secularizing the commentary, giving it over to political, liturgical, literary, and elementary analysis, they have made this into a vitally relevant piece of philosophical inquiry.
March 23, 2012
The search for absurdity 0
by Emily M. Keeler
How The Daily Show may have an advantage over mainstream news, by virtue of its refusual to take “View from Nowhere.” Conor Friedersdorf makes the compelling case that comedy writers, with their eyes rooting out the absurd in the world, can put give the news some much needed perspective.
March 23, 2012
New Vonnegut 0
by C. Max Magee
A never-before-published novella by Kurt Vonnegut called Basic Training is now seeing the light of day as a Kindle Single. Julie Bosman has a bit more info at the New York Times.
March 23, 2012
I Am Not A Character: On Thomas Mallon’s Watergate 4
by Michael Bourne
One cannot read Watergate without thinking that, in key elements of structure and characterization, Mallon the partisan got the better of Mallon the novelist.
March 22, 2012
Watch me spit, classic lit 0
by Emily M. Keeler
Based on a recent Jay-Z and Kanye West joint, La Shea Delaney and Annabelle Quezada bring you the addictive track “B*tches in Bookstores.” This all despite West being a confirmed, even proud, non-reader.
