Books and Ideas

A Short Analysis of Sarah Palin’s Video Speech on the Tucson Shootings A Short Analysis of Sarah Palin’s Video Speech on the Tucson Shootings

What's uppermost on her mind.

Jan 20, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Library Man: On Claude Lévi-Strauss

Library Man: On Claude Lévi-Strauss Library Man: On Claude Lévi-Strauss

With a sharp eye for cultural patterns and a keen feel for the shape of a story, Claude Lévi-Strauss was a poet in the laboratory of anthropology.

Jan 19, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney

Perfect-Bound: On Elizabeth Hardwick

Perfect-Bound: On Elizabeth Hardwick Perfect-Bound: On Elizabeth Hardwick

Elizabeth Hardwick found New York's jittery impermanence and inchoate density to be an obstacle for the fiction writer.

Jan 19, 2011 / Books & the Arts / James Marcus

An Atlas of Reckonings An Atlas of Reckonings

The horrors of The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database arise through the cumulative weight of its abstract pieces of information.

Jan 19, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Robin Einhorn

House Republicans Plan Symbolic Repeal Vote on the Healthcare Law House Republicans Plan Symbolic Repeal Vote on the Healthcare Law

"We'll show the poor."

Jan 13, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Empty Rooms: On Nicole Krauss

Empty Rooms: On Nicole Krauss Empty Rooms: On Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss's Great House swings from the evocative to the overcharged.

Jan 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz

Literature and Exile

Literature and Exile Literature and Exile

Books are the only homeland of the true writer, books that may sit on shelves or in the memory.

Jan 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Roberto Bolaño

Vanishing Points: Language Poetry Remembered Vanishing Points: Language Poetry Remembered

The Grand Piano is a highbrow Friends—a collective history of the early years of Language poetry.

Jan 12, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

The Message Other Mayors Got From How Newark’s Corey Booker Came Out of the Great Storm The Message Other Mayors Got From How Newark’s Corey Booker Came Out of the Great Storm

It was the ultimate photo-op.

Jan 6, 2011 / Column / Calvin Trillin

Hope in 2011

Hope in 2011 Hope in 2011

The arc of history bends towards justice, but it will not bend by itself.

Jan 6, 2011 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel

x