Richard Wagner’s Pandemonium Richard Wagner’s Pandemonium
The contested life and afterlife of the composer.
May 18, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Mina Tavakoli
Why Do We Eat Bad Food? Why Do We Eat Bad Food?
Mark Bittman’s new history looks at the economy and politics of junk food.
May 18, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Bill McKibben
The City That Embodies the United States’ Contradictions The City That Embodies the United States’ Contradictions
In the history of St. Louis, we find both a radical and reactionary past—and a more hopeful future too.
May 17, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Robert Greene II
The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer The Mundane and Alienated Life of a Freelancer
Kavita Bedford’s novel Friends and Dark Shapes explores the false promises and precarity of writing in the age of the gig economy.
May 13, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer
Mike Gold, Avant-Garde Bard of Proletarian New York Mike Gold, Avant-Garde Bard of Proletarian New York
A new biography charts Gold's many lives—as a novelist and journalist, as a working-class militant, and as a forerunner to the Beats.
May 12, 2021 / Books & the Arts / J. Hoberman
Diane Seuss’s American Gothic Diane Seuss’s American Gothic
frank: sonnets is an oracular collection of verse on mortality, tragedy, love, and life.
May 11, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Lauren Stroh
The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen The Brutal Transcendence of Tove Ditlevsen
By resisting all of memoir’s conventions, the Danish writer tells the story of her life more painfully and beautifully.
May 6, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Marie Solis
The Hedonist Bard of the Midlife Crisis The Hedonist Bard of the Midlife Crisis
Why you should and shouldn’t read the provocative poems of Frederick Seidel.
May 5, 2021 / Books & the Arts / David Schurman Wallace
The Broken Bell The Broken Bell
I like, winter nights, to find in a heat lamp That beats and fumes, old memories Rising in the banging Of church bells through snow spray. Blessed be the bell of liberty That, anci…
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Daisy Fried
Graham Greene’s God Graham Greene’s God
As a new biography shows, the British novelist was always haunted by, and uncertain about, his own faith.
May 4, 2021 / Books & the Arts / John Banville