All Reviews

• Margaret Atwood and the S and F Words

  John CluteNov 27, 2011

• Memory May Not Sustain

  Where science fails, poetry succeeds. What time forgets, language remembers.

  Dean RaderNov 24, 2011

• Celebrity Politicians: Steven J. Ross's "Hollywood Left and Right"

  Hollywood intervention in politics is as old as the silents.

  Elbert VenturaNov 22, 2011

• Hurricane Helen

  Whereas DeWitt often talks about fiction as if it were a vehicle for presenting exciting ideas, the tendency of American culture is toward relaxation.

  Lee KonstantinouNov 21, 2011

• Eureka: Helen DeWitt's "Lightning Rods"

  DeWitt specializes in novels that trouble today’s commercial mainstream standards.

  Veronica EspositoNov 21, 2011
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  Discoveries: Lily Tuck

  Susan Salter ReynoldsNov 19, 2011
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  Discoveries: Michael Cunningham

  Susan Salter ReynoldsNov 19, 2011
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  Discoveries: Maile Meloy

  Susan Salter ReynoldsNov 19, 2011

• Our Zombies, Ourselves: Colson Whitehead's "Zone One"

  Zombies, it turns out, have much to tell us about our lives in the 2010s.

  Nov 14, 2011

• Zell to L.A. Times: Drop Dead

  The book is a reminder that whenever you think things can’t get worse, they can. They can get much, much worse.

  Nov 9, 2011

• The Cows: A Rumination

  The Cows seems particularly playful, gentle. Her consciousness here bristles, stirs, even strains, but it rarely furrows or breaks.

  Nov 8, 2011

• The Age of Revolution: Eric Hobsbawm’s “How to Change the World”

  For Marx, Hobsbawm emphasizes, capitalism was not just exploitation and oppression. What made capitalism unique was its dynamism.

  Nov 4, 2011

• Words, Words, Words: On Glenn Ligon

  Beyond Ligon’s instinct for the telling quote, it is the sumptuously lush surfaces of his paintings that beguiles the eye.

  Nov 1, 2011

• Postmodern Prometheus

  A scientist named Dr. Victor discovers the secret to life itself and, hoping to bear a race “better and nobler” than humanity, creates a giant man through nefarious processes.

  Oct 31, 2011

• Paperback Writers: Joan Didion

  Didion is so afraid of her own depths of feeling she can’t avoid revealing them. That’s her contradiction, her fascination.

  Oct 29, 2011
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  Having, or Making, or Thinking About Making a Drink

  Reading Didion’s prose has always been an aural experience as much as a literary one, as much about rhythm and intonation.

  Meghan DaumOct 28, 2011