Peter Ibbetson
The Corrections book by Jonathan Franzen
In a 1996 Harper’s article, then-obscure novelist Jonathan Franzen made what has since become a much-publicized boast. He claimed that…
Hamlet in Purgatory book by Stephen Greenblatt
For several months after my friend Elizabeth died, when I was sixteen, I would be awakened in the middle of…
The Dying Animal book by Philip Roth
While the title creature of Philip Roth’s The Dying Animal is drawn from a Yeats poem, a gimlet-eyed reader might…
Stranger Shores book by J.M. Coetzee
At sixty-one years of age, the South African novelist J.M. Coetzee has crafted several treasures of contemporary fiction, including his…
Political Fictions book by Joan Didion
Something about Joan Didion’s writing makes me almost believe every word. She’s so acridly disarming, so apparently prescient in her…
The Glass Palace book by Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh occupies a rather curious place in the landscape of contemporary English-language authors from the Indian subcontinent. At fifty-five…
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White book by Frank H. Wu
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Yale. I am attending one of the accompanying lectures when a graduate…
Monograph: We Built This Suburb by Carey Seal
Everyone agrees that America’s cities are in trouble. The familiar complaints about “urban blight” and overcrowded slums now seem almost…
The Early Stories: 1953-1975 book by John Updike reviewed by Charlotte Dewar
Looking Backward A compendium of the early work of an American literary master In his 1986 introduction to a set…
Party of the People book by Jules Whitcover Grand Old Party book by Lewis L. Gould reviewed by David Noyola
Bipartisan Reading Incisive accounts of the Democratic and Republican parties When the tenor of politics is inflamed, partisan bickering precludes…