Body Heat Body Heat
After the Kinsey Report but before the first Penthouse Forum, John Updike wrote, "He kneels in a kind of sickness between her spread legs.
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Mark Lotto
The War That Never Was The War That Never Was
As war threatened Europe in the 1930s, a physicist turned to a psychiatrist to help understand the impending violence.
Dec 2, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby
Hostile Obituary for Derrida Hostile Obituary for Derrida
On October 10, the New York Times published a front-page obituary for French philosopher Jacques Derrida.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Ross Benjamin
The Interpreters of Maladies The Interpreters of Maladies
Derrida was often misunderstood, but rarely worse than in his New York Times obituary. Ross Benjamin explains, in a web-only feature.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Adam Shatz
Days of Rage Days of Rage
On November 4, 1979, a few months after the collapse of the Iranian monarchy and the inauguration of Iran's Islamic Republic, a group of college students calling themselves the M...
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Reza Aslan
Of Love and Other Demons Of Love and Other Demons
The first chapter of Too Brief a Treat: The Letters of Truman Capote follows our hero's adventures from 1936 through 1948, a particularly heady period of his life.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Nathaniel Rich
Little Big Man Little Big Man
No musical life has been told more often than Wagner's. Biographies have wafted incense around him, or been incensed by him.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Paul Griffiths
The Shock of the Old The Shock of the Old
These remarks introduced a centennial tribute to Isaac Bashevis Singer in October at the 92nd Street Y in New York.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Morris Dickstein
The Good Girl The Good Girl
In the past few decades, Russell Banks has established himself as one of America's most important living writers, one of a handful with the daring and the talent to plumb our his...
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Deborah Scroggins
Imitation of Life Imitation of Life
To return to Chekhov in this cultural moment makes you feel as if you were experiencing spring in Russia.
Nov 24, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Lee Siegel