All Essays

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  One Day in the Life of Intern Denisovich: With All Good Wishes to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  The Captain returns from the latrine and says, “Brace yourselves men, it’s at least twenty below!” I translate this into nutcase for Glyuba the Idiot. I can read Homer in the original Greek and this is what I’m doing.

  Andrew NichollsJan 3, 2014

  • Humor

• Short Term Feelings: What Hurts About "Short Term 12"

  Leslie JamisonJan 3, 2014
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  “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender

  A golden-haired girl in the apple orchard, a woman married to an ogre, and tiger-mending sisters traversing Malaysia—a collection of 15 stories that dazzle, confuse, and hold a mirror up to reality. Check out our Winter 2014 pick for the LARB Book Club: “The Color Master” by Aimee Bender.

  Jan 2, 2014
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  Such, Such Were the Miseries: Down and Out in Paris and London and Istanbul

  Being down and out is a universal, timeless story. Just ask George Orwell.

  Kaya GençJan 2, 2014
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  PART TWO of Imagining Alien Sex: Feminist Interventions

  "Are we questioning the naturalness of our own sexual and gender paradigms?"

  Jonathan AlexanderJan 2, 2014

• Acting with Integrity

  Ralph Fiennes has finely crafted an honest film about Dickens's sometimes callousness toward the opposite sex.

  John RomanoJan 1, 2014

  • Literary Fiction

• 

  Where To?

  The novel as event

  Cooper Levey-BakerDec 31, 2013

  • Literary Criticism

• 

  PART ONE of Imagining Alien Sex: From Ming the Merciless to "The Lovers"

  "In this four-part series, we look at different depictions in SF of sex between humans and aliens, beginning with some early encounters in pulp and 'classic' science fiction, in which the exotic 'Other' entices — sometimes pleasurably, sometimes perilously."

  David Lumb, Jonathan AlexanderDec 31, 2013
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  How To Be a Person Second

  The state of the televised female heroine

  Lara ZarumDec 30, 2013

  • Television

• Hunger Games, Number Games

  Hunger Games numerology.

  Wai Chee DimockDec 26, 2013

• FICTION: NEW & NOTEWORTHY

  Alizah Salario, Geoff Mak, Ira Wells, Ryan BubaloDec 25, 2013

  • Fiction

• 

  2013 in Review: Rachel Kushner’s "The Flamethrowers" and Caleb Crain’s "Necessary Errors"

  2013 in review: can a novel write about a specific subject in such a way that universalizes its conflict?

  Geoff MakDec 25, 2013

• Danger Close: The Iraq War in American Fiction

  While most of the country tries to forget the Iraq War ever happened, American Iraq fiction compels readers to take a perilous ride.

  Dec 25, 2013
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  The Poems (We Think) We Know: “The Night Before Christmas”

  More than a feel-good fantasy of holiday giving

  Alexandra SocaridesDec 24, 2013

  • Poetry

• 

  Perfect Strangers: Tinder and 21st Century Fiction

  The sudden about-face in Millennial romance and sex

  August BrownDec 24, 2013

  • Cultural Studies

  • Gender & Sexuality

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  Dragonfire and Ruin, or King Under the Mountain

  The ultimate joy of The Desolation of Smaug is in watching its many moving parts.

  Michael NordineDec 23, 2013

  • Film