[contextly_auto_sidebar id="MSKRrA0yUeF2He6kLUhFxQKSROhnm7wv"] OVER the last two weeks I've been speaking about tradition with a number of accomplished women. My final installment includes a bit of a twist: The essayist Meghan Daum told me about a tradition she considers dangerous. Overuse of the "I" in storytelling is crowding out the larger world, she says. ...I feel like 70 percent of what … [Read more...]
Anne Lamott on Forgiveness
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="k5HVmkoS99tcx2yoOLVKnammF7vwZIsw"] THE essayist, Christian, feminist and political progressive is the latest subject of the Trust Me On This series I'm handling for Salon. The Bay-Area-based Lamott, perhaps best known for the book Bird by Bird, spoke to me about a subject central to her new collection, Small Victories -- forgiveness. Here is the story. Turns out … [Read more...]
Are Books an “Essential Good”?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Gv49ZAYAnsBBRrMS1uvMyG3p21i1lrA2"] IN France, bookstores and literary culture thrive, in part because of laws privileging books and protecting their producers and disseminators. A recent discussion in the New York Times Book Review asked if we need a similar system here. The provocative critic Daniel Mendelsohn starts by talking about cultural differences between … [Read more...]
Farewell to Clive James
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="Af3WnbX7JuSvdi2C0uLj0Xwv9IxmV5r4"] HOW much longer will the beleaguered polymath last? No one knows. But my friend and guest columnist Lawrence Christon has penned an appreciation of the great Australian-born writer. With no further ado: "THE LONG GOODBYE," By Lawrence Christon At 75, Clive James is close to the end of a battle with a form of leukemia that’s … [Read more...]
Farewell to Poet Galway Kinnell
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="iP0IqRoF4qtIY96CXBii7z7AbtKTPJ16"] Twenty years ago, a few friends and I piled into an old car and drove up to the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival at a little CT town to see one of the titans of American poetry read. The night transformed me, and those friendships, in ways hard to put into words. Now Galway Kinnell has died, after a long and rich life. He and his … [Read more...]
Author Sven Birkerts on Culture Crash The Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="l18iXkqE0pAKSvY5UNL4M81fXOJAntvm"] ONE of the first and most eloquent books on the transition away from the world of print to a new one dominated by digital communications came 20 years ago from the veteran literary critic Sven Birkerts. The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age was funny, sad and prescient, and served as important foundation … [Read more...]
David Mitchell’s “The Bone Clocks”
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="KUST1tJRtgkRnoQOLlZRPbrZOASSJtA8"] I'M not sure there's a novelist alive whose work I look forward to more than David Mitchell's. I say this even while sharing some mixed feelings about his new novel. The parts of this that work -- four and a half of its six parts -- are simply spectacular. In fact, I can't think of two many writers of any kind whose storytelling is … [Read more...]
Poet Dana Gioia Endorses Culture Crash the Book
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="i8fGP35j28y9jQ6G5JGv4lGoSeq95eDP"] NOTORIOUS to some, beloved by others, the California poet has this to say about Culture Crash, my upcoming book: Scott Timberg has written an original and important study. He explores some of the most pressing cultural issues affecting the arts and intellectual life with remarkable clarity. This is the first analysis of our current … [Read more...]
Have We Lost the Ability to Be Alone?
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="wInG9qIiyZXfe5IWkw9gGzmkXV2eQ06T"] A COUPLE of decades into it, we're still figuring out what the Internet is doing to us, as individuals and as a society. A fascinating interview with the author of a new book, The End of Absence, get at this in a nuanced way. Author Michael Harris talks about the difference between the digital era and the age of Gutenberg, the … [Read more...]
Philip Roth, Le Guin Take on Amazon
[contextly_auto_sidebar id="65McoqrzvnW78eClGabJ9zi1OijdJLHZ"] WRITERS and artists are notoriously difficult to corral; it's both built into the job description and something that keeps the creative class from asserting itself. But lately a number of scribes have united in an effort to resist the bullying of the online bookseller. The New York Times reports : Now, hundreds … [Read more...]