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CHARLES TAYLOR
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Counting casualties
No matter what bromides are trotted out in the aftermath of tragedy or disaster about the ability of people to pull together, when it comes time to memorialize the event, fissures always show.
War zero
Better than almost any current writer, Pelecanos has shown what city dwellers have known for years: that it is urban neighborhoods, and not suburbs, where what we think of as the small-town values of community and knowing your neighbors have taken root.
Biblical fury
Donald Ray Pollock's first novel is called The Devil All the Time , and that's exactly what's wrong with it.
Three literary fantasies for summer — including a true one
One of the purposes of escapist reading is to feed our daydreams.
Ace Atkins runs down Machine Gun Kelly
Ace Atkins’s new novel is what the movie Public Enemies should have been.
Inspector Montalbano might be the friend you haven't met
One of the attractions of our getting hooked on a series of novels with a recurring protagonist is the reassurance that once every year or so we'll have a friend to catch up with. What we don't like to think about is how it'll feel when that friend is in bad shape.
In happiness begins responsibility
Willard Spiegelman seems like a nice guy. He has had the good luck to live a happy life without major disaster or suffering. But as a long-time professor of English at Southern Methodist University and editor of the Southwest Review , he has ended up living his life among just those people — writers and academics.
Joe Lansdale's Hap and Leonard act out
Joe Lansdale's Hap and Leonard act out
Revisiting a modest master
Francis Wyndham's first book of short stories, Out of the War , was published in 1974, when the author was 50 and in the midst of a distinguished career of reviewing and editing.
Michael Connelly's newspaper elegy
Michael Connelly's newspaper elegy
Femme fantastic
I didn't see Honey West during its one-season, 1965-'66 prime-time run on CBS.
Burn Notice ’s honest con job
In the popular imagination, the spy is always cool, sophisticated, elegant — in other words, European.
Mailer on the ’68 conventions
“We will be fighting for forty years.” Reading those words at the end of Norman Mailer’s 1968 Miami and the Siege of Chicago , you can’t help but feel a chill.
In Plain Sight’s straight talk
On USA’s nifty summer series In Plain Sight , Mary McCormack, as federal marshal Mary Shannon, joins the select league of those who’ve made jeans, tank tops, boots, and leather jackets into an American fashion statement.
Rendell and Nabb transcend genre
Not in the Flesh is Ruth Rendell’s 21st Inspector Wexford novel since she and the character debuted in 1964.
Andrew Motion's is a memoir to savor
A book as scrupulously observed and beautifully wrought as Andrew Motion’s In the Blood can provide a shock of recognition. This, you think, is what memoir was meant to be.
Is reading good for you?
Freelance writers are often the recipient of unusual opportunities.
The chanteuse is loose
Must we still make the case for French pop?
Toby Barlow’s verse novel has teeth
The story, the emotion, and the beauty and precision of Barlow’s language can convince you that new writers who want to experiment are not all zombies risen from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Janet’s Discipline and Badu’s New AmErykah
What’s in a fantasy world?
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