Lorin Stein, Defender of Ambiguity
With a very few exceptions, everything in the book was written by someone in his or her 30s. Nowadays that seems to be the age at which many writers come into their own. The moment when they have...
View ArticleThe Books Women Shouldn’t Read
Let me prove that I’m not a misandrist by starting [my book list] with Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, because any book Paul Ryan loves that much bears some responsibility for the misery he’s dying to...
View ArticleProtecting Murakami’s Library Card
Fifty years ago, a kid named Haruki Murakami borrowed books from his school library in Kobe, Japan. This week, the Kobe Shimbun, a local paper, published a list of the books he checked out, as compiled...
View ArticleLiterary Beef: Epistolary Punches Thrown over A Little Life
Hanya Yanigihara’s A Little Life has prompted anguished tears from many a reader—and now, is stoking emotional fires (and a few good burns) in a space that doesn’t often feel impassioned heat: the...
View Article2015, Year of the Badass Woman?
As it’s most commonly used, badass implies both toughness and disaffectedness. It’s rare to look at someone whose chief qualities are measured thoughtfulness and open emotionality and declare her a...
View ArticleIceland, Nation of Readers
Holland isn’t the only Northern European country with unusual Christmas traditions. Icelanders pride themselves on being a nation of readers—93% of residents read at least one book a year, and one in...
View ArticleOdes to Lolita, the Sexuagenarian
It was like being marched through someone’s private idea of a perfect night, a night where I was the center but one that had curiously little to do with me at all—all of which is to say that in an...
View ArticleNew Year, New Reading List
When Esquire released a list of “The 80 Best Books Every Man Should Read,” the magazine provoked ire and excoriation. But hey, at least Esquire has recognized its mistake. For its new list of “80 Books...
View ArticleA Visual Guide for “How to Be Perfect”
Count among your true friends people of various stations of life.Do not exclaim, “Isn’t technology wonderful!”Learn how to whistle at earsplitting volume.Still hunting for a good New Year’s resolution?...
View ArticlePatti and Robert, Frida and Diego
The last painting Frida painted in her life was watermelons, and at the end of his life, Diego also painted watermelons. I always thought that was beautiful: this green fruit that opens up, the pulp,...
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