Has Contemporary Fiction Ignored the Working Class? Has Contemporary Fiction Ignored the Working Class?
Claire Baglin’s bracing On the Clock gives its readers a close look at work behind the fry station, and in the process asks what experiences are missing from mainstream letters.
Feb 26, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Rachel Vorona Cote
The Riotous Worlds of Thomas Pynchon The Riotous Worlds of Thomas Pynchon
From “The Crying Lot of 49” to his latest noirs, the American novelist has always proceeded along a track strangely parallel to our own.
Feb 10, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Benjamin Kunkel
Barbara Pym’s Archaic England Barbara Pym’s Archaic England
In the novelist’s work, she mocks English culture’s nostalgia, revealing what lies beneath the country’s obsession with its heritage.
Feb 6, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Ashley Cullina
George Whitmore’s Unsparing Queer Fiction George Whitmore’s Unsparing Queer Fiction
Long out of print, his novel Nebraska is an enigmatic record of queer survival in midcentury America.
Jan 26, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Jeremy Lybarger
John Updike, Letter Writer John Updike, Letter Writer
A brilliant prose stylist, confident, amiable, and wonderfully lucid when talking about other people’s problems, Updike rarely confessed or confronted his own.
Jan 12, 2026 / Books & the Arts / Vivian Gornick
The Dislocations of Shuang Xuetao The Dislocations of Shuang Xuetao
The Chinese writer’s fiction details how the country transformed on an intimate level after the Cultural Revolution.
Dec 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Ting Lin
An Absurdist Novel That Tries to Make Sense of the Ukraine War An Absurdist Novel That Tries to Make Sense of the Ukraine War
Maria Reva’s Endling is at once a postmodern caper and an autobiographical work that explores how ordinary people navigate a catastrophe.
Dec 30, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Laura Mills
Why We Keep Reading “All Quiet on the Western Front” Why We Keep Reading “All Quiet on the Western Front”
A new translation vividly renders the sadly evergreen influence of the Erich Maria Remarque’s World War I novel.
Dec 29, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Paul Reitter
Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff’s Sweeping Anti-War Novel Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneff’s Sweeping Anti-War Novel
Your Name Here dramatizes the tensions and possibilities of political art.
Dec 16, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Jess Bergman
Solvej Balle and the Tyranny of Time Solvej Balle and the Tyranny of Time
The Danish novelist’s septology, On the Calculation of Volume, asks what fiction can explore when you remove one of its key characteristics—the idea of time itself.
Dec 4, 2025 / Books & the Arts / Dilara O’Neil