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CLEA SIMON

Latest Articles

Interview: John Hodgman

One man's operating system
Long before John Hodgman became universally recognized as the systems-challenged PC in Apple’s ads, he was writing fake trivia for such publications as McSweeney’s and the New York TImes Magazine.

By: CLEA SIMON | October 08, 2008

Murder, she wrote

Interview: Tana French's deep crime novels
"It’s always more fun to write people who are really messed up or really vicious."

By: CLEA SIMON | August 05, 2008

Spy games

Alan Furst’s “Night Soldiers” novels
The gray afternoon, the loveless assignation, the endless bureaucracy.

By: CLEA SIMON | June 10, 2008

Flying high

Interview: Jonathan Miles’s airport novel
There’s nothing new about the complaint as literature, says author Jonathan Miles.

By: CLEA SIMON | June 02, 2008

Shaping the Crescent

The making of New Orleans
Even before Katrina wreaked its havoc on New Orleans, a popular T-shirt proclaimed the city “Third World and Proud of It,” and numerous more-literary types have long referred to it as the “northernmost Caribbean city.”

By: CLEA SIMON | April 29, 2008

General Tso’s way

The path of a Chinese foodie
Behind every dish lies a story, and behind a cuisine, well, there may be a book.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 12, 2008

The Wire: And All the Pieces that Matter

Nonesuch
The Wire is over, but the five-season drama lives on in the unforgettable characters and in this simmering HBO collection.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 12, 2008

Shrink-wrapped

Carol Gilligan steps into fiction
If ever a thinker stood for the idea of questioning authority, it was Carol Gilligan.

By: CLEA SIMON | January 22, 2008

Free speech

Elizabeth Little’s word games
Twenty-six-year-old author (and Harvard grad) Elizabeth Little has had a lifelong love affair with language.

By: CLEA SIMON | December 31, 2007

Making book

Ben Katchor explains The Rosenbach Company
If obsession is at the core of The Rosenbach Company, says co-creator Ben Katchor, that only makes the pop musical a human story.

By: CLEA SIMON | November 14, 2007

Goin’ Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino

Vanguard
This packed two-disc set gathers all the usual suspects and more for a Tipitina’s Foundation project to rebuild Domino’s Ninth Ward neighborhood in New Orleans.

By: CLEA SIMON | October 22, 2007

Thirsty nights

Rebecca Barry’s bar stories
A man walks into a bar.

By: CLEA SIMON | October 09, 2007

Laotian dreams

Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri novels
Dr. Siri Paiboun has a sense of proportion.

By: CLEA SIMON | September 04, 2007

Bound and gagged

Lisa See gets tied up in the Qing
Girl meets boy; girl loses boy; girl wins boy back. It’s an old story, and it usually works, even when it’s set halfway around the world and the girl and boy are 17th-century Qing Dynasty aristocrats.

By: CLEA SIMON | July 18, 2007

Gumshoes and golems

Michael Chabon’s Alaskan-Yiddish noir
Michael Chabon has boundary issues.

By: CLEA SIMON | June 05, 2007

Going under Down Under

Richard Flanagan’s fish in a barrel
Everybody loves an outlaw, and Richard Flanagan is no exception.

By: CLEA SIMON | May 01, 2007

Homecoming

Local group slams for NOLA
A home is more than a structure, more than a safe place to lay your head. It’s community, continuity, and belonging.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 26, 2007

Pop elegy

Critic Rob Sheffield comes to terms with the death of his musical soul mate in Love Is a Mix Tape
If every generation has its Love Story , its tragic tale of romance and loss, then Rob Sheffield’s Love Is a Mix Tape is that book for those who came of age with indie rock.

By: CLEA SIMON | March 10, 2007

Paula Spencer dries out

Roddy Doyle’s heroine recovers
Purgatory offers less inherent drama than Hell.

By: CLEA SIMON | January 30, 2007

Elvis Costello & Allen Toussaint

Hot as a Pistol, Keen as a Blade | Hip-O
When a big band take a big stage, the finer touches can get lost.

By: CLEA SIMON | December 28, 2006

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