Books
395 results
Page 38
China's Nobel laureate, reconsidered
The unbearable unreadability of a Nobel Prize-winning novel
The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan has unleashed patriotic celebrations in China. Which leaves just one question: Has anyone actually read his novel?
Articles
4 minute read
D'Annunzio's "Notturno,' rediscovered
The Italian patient
Yale University Press and Margellos World Republic of Letters Books have rescued yet another forgotten reputation. Gabriele D'Annunzio's Notturno, painstakingly written as he recovered from war wounds, is neither novel nor non-fiction memoir; instead, it's a prose poem.
Articles
3 minute read
My problem with Junot Diaz's 'Oscar Wao'
Power of the pen, or: This author could destroy my life's work
I've spent decades arguing that Americans must expand their literary horizons beyond our narrow shores. So I was pleased by the honors bestowed upon Oscar Wao, by the Dominican novelist Junot Diaz. Then I had the misfortune of actually reading this mindless book.
Articles
5 minute read
Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall'
Buy my book or I'll kill you, or: The Terminator's promotional tour
Move over, Marcel Proust. The Terminator's memories are bigger, badder and surely more shameless than anything you conjured up by biting into a cookie.
Articles
2 minute read
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Kingsley Amis's "The Old Devils'
Sympathy for reactionaries (including the author)
The Old Devils is a powerful example of a good writer's ability to render sympathetic those who seem nothing like us and who, if made flesh, would quite possibly loathe us. That goes for its misogynistic author, too.
Articles
5 minute read
Dinesh D'Souza's '2016: Obama's America'
The roots of Dinesh D'Souza's rage
Dinesh D'Souza's 2016: Obama's America poses as a documentary but is a cynically over-the-top appeal to the lunatic fringe that sees Barack Obama as the fount of all evil and the antithesis of American values. Go for the laughs; this presidential campaign could sure use a few.
Articles
7 minute read
"The Rotation': Baseball's ups and downs
The greatest baseball team ever assembled (but only on paper, unfortunately)
In my youth, Philadelphia baseball fans took losing for granted, so we found other attractions in the game. Today they take winning for granted— a dangerous delusion, as we've seen this year.
Articles
6 minute read
Frances Diem Vardamis's 'Time Running Out'
Apocalypse at the top of the world
Frances Diem Vardamis's Time Running Out, the latest installment of her Yannis Lavonis detective series, carries her hero to the top of the world for a confrontation with a breed of Christian apocalypticists spawned by the new Russia. Vardamis is a shrewd observer of the contemporary scene with a sharp eye for character and detail, and her protagonist is worth caring about.
Articles
7 minute read
Carlin Romano's "America the Philosophical'
Who you calling a meliorist? Or: Romano contemplates the bust of Socrates
What's a former philosophy major to do when his favorite literary critic writes a 688-page book denigrating Socrates as an authoritarian wuss? Carlin Romano's America the Philosophical is a ragged grab-bag of ideas. But what enlightening disorder!
Articles
4 minute read
"Tubes': Andrew Blum travels the Internet
That cloud is expensive!
So you think Internet service should be free? Andrew Blum's cyber-travelogue demonstrates just how much time, effort, expertise and costly material our brave new cyberworld requires.
Articles
4 minute read