A Healthy Serving of Ellroy
Ellroy’s world is too toxic for justice to survive.
All Reviews
Epic Noir
Ira Wells on James Ellroy’s "Perfidia"
The Definitive History of Postwar Britain
As postwar Britain’s financial prospects changed, so too did the rhythms and habits of its daily life.
The Art of Critique: Victor Serge’s “Midnight in the Century”
“Personalism” combines the radical libertarian belief in the importance of the individual with the communist belief in the importance of the entire community. Victor Serge was its greatest champion.
Laura Quinney on Merwin
Merwin has been experimenting for over 50 years to perfect his kind of lyric.
When Algorithms Are Cheaper than Humans: The Hidden Curse of Automation
Is technology quietly deskilling, and dehumanizing, us?
How Should a Woman Behave?
Sarah Gerard reviews 'The Wallcreeper' and 'Helen Keller Really Lived'
Late Start, Spectacular Finish: The Life of Penelope Fitzgerald
For Fitzgerald, who grew up in a literary household and who was a brilliant student at Oxford, barge penury was not supposed to be in the cards.
Fabulous!
"It takes guts to write about a serious subject with a sense of humor."
An Unabashed Tour d’Horizon: Media in the 20th Century
Can deconstructing and reassembling notions of “media” and “art” lead to a new language of things?
Film Junkies
On the addiction narrative, when the addiction is movies.
Susan Howe’s Telepathy
Howe introduces us to the poet’s sense of the library and manuscript archive as untouched wilderness.
A Shadow of His Spirit
Contributor John Keeble on José Saramago's posthumous novel "Skylight"
The Watcher and the Watched
"It’s about seeing and being seen, particularly as women."
Kafka’s Law or Dante’s Inferno?
Burns cruelly sinks all our hopes of a reformed system with the most pessimistic and conclusory line in his book: “Here optimists really are fools.”
Amateur’s Luck: Two Books Contemplate Music as a Hobby
That question haunts every kid who suffers at practice. Two new books make a compelling case for the benefits and joys of amateurism.