Books and Ideas

Lust for Life Lust for Life

The afterlife of Italian poet, novelist, critic and filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini brings to mind some familiar lines from Auden's "In Memory of W.B.

Jan 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / George Scialabba

All You Need Is a Girl and a Gun All You Need Is a Girl and a Gun

Colin MacCabe's new book is more a provocative polemic than a rounded biography, but it deserves the highest praise for being inspired by the belief that in the early 1960s Jean-...

Jan 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / David Thomson

The Fog of Cop-Out The Fog of Cop-Out

My dear friend and late Nation colleague Andrew Kopkind liked to tell how, skiing in Aspen at the height of the Vietnam War, he came round a bend and saw another skier, Defense S...

Jan 22, 2004 / Beat the Devil / Alexander Cockburn

The Once-Green GOP The Once-Green GOP

"The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general--and President Bush in particular--are most vulnerable." So asserted Frank Luntz, a leading Republic...

Jan 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Mark Hertsgaard

Paul O’Neill, Truth-Teller Paul O’Neill, Truth-Teller

For those with a taste for learning the inner truth about White House politics, reading Paul O'Neill's story is like eating a bowl of peanuts--difficult to stop.

Jan 22, 2004 / Books & the Arts / William Greider

The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism

In 1879 the German journalist Wilhelm Marr, a former socialist and anarchist, founded an organization that was novel in two ways.

Jan 15, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Brian Klug

A Near Perfect Spy Novelist A Near Perfect Spy Novelist

A year ago now, when the Bush Administration was preparing the world for an American invasion of Iraq, John le Carré wrote a column of scathing, sharp-toothed commentary f...

Jan 8, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Patrick Smith

A Magical Realist and His Reality A Magical Realist and His Reality

As ways of writing about a past, memoirs and autobiographies, although in practice they may often overlap, are different undertakings.

Jan 8, 2004 / Books & the Arts / Perry Anderson

What Are They Reading? What Are They Reading?

This is a book that should be on every activist's bed table, like Gideon bibles in hotels.

Dec 24, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Richard Lingeman

The Haunting The Haunting

The likeness of Nathaniel Hawthorne hanging in the AmLit museum resembles the shadowy, fading portrait of a distinguished ancestor.

Dec 24, 2003 / Books & the Arts / Richard Lingeman

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