The Education of a British-Protected Child
By Geoff Wisner | 11.05.09
In 1958, while he was still in his 20s, Chinua Achebe published “Things Fall Apart,” the story of a traditional leader named Okonkwo whose inflexible nature undermines his humanity and his ability to resist the encroachments of British missionaries. “Things Fall Apart” has sold more than 8 million copies. It is the one African novel that everyone has heard of. (more…)
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Mentors, Muses & Monsters
By Susan Comninos | 11.03.09
Once, I was young and broke and living in Boston. It was 1991 – another bleak economic year – but, high on the town’s literary history, I moved there after graduate school to become a writer. Instead, the months sped past as I scored just one or two ill-paid freelance gigs. (more…)
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What the Dog Saw
By David Holohan | 11.02.09
A collection of pieces Malcolm Gladwell has written for The New Yorker magazine since 1996, titled What the Dog Saw, is a mixed bag of quirky profiles; thoughtful and contrarian analyses of commonly embraced theories, such as the belief that America’s intelligence services could easily have “connected the dots” and foiled the 9/11 attacks; and predictions people make (about crime, job applicants, pets) that may seem reasonable at first glance, but which aren’t grounded in Gladwellian reality. (more…)
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Becoming Americans
By Geoff Wisner | 10.27.09
In 1979, the Library of America began its great task: making the works of America’s essential writers available in compact, durable, uniform editions that would remain in print. This would seem to be enough for one press to handle, but in 1998 the LOA went on to publish “Writing New York,” the first in a separate series of special anthologies. (more…)
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Manhood for Amateurs
By Rebekah Denn | 10.22.09
Michael Chabon brings the most varied and fabulous scenarios alive through his fiction: a Pulitzer-winning opus on love and war and the Golden Age of comics, a weary detective in an alternate history of a Jewish Alaska, a baseball game-turned- magical adventure. In his latest book, it’s a gift to find that his writing is just as radiant, original, and observant when trained on his own life. (more…)
