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Excerpt: Carolyn Chute's latest novel

One week only: an exclusive excerpt from the acclaimed author's new novel
In the cold parlor of the St. Onge farmhouse, deep in the old collapsing couch, sort of wrapped in the couch, in its waves of whimpering springs and hills of upholstery of frazzled blue nap, are 15-year-old Brianna and Gordon.

By: CAROLYN CHUTE | November 14, 2008

The 2666 giant has arrived

Roberto Bolaño's 2666 may be the Great American Novel
Jorge Luis Borges wrote of the desert as a labyrinth without walls or center, unending and inescapable. That's a fair description of Roberto Bolaño's last work, the 912-page opus 2666 .

By: PETER KEOUGH | November 11, 2008

The bare bones of Widow Clicquot

A Mainer's new book explores the queen of champagne
Barbe-Nicole Clicquot Ponsardin (say that a few times fast) is a woman after my own heart.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | November 05, 2008

Crucial moments of history in Forever War

A decade in the war on terror
Through journalistic instincts, hunches, and sheer luck, Dexter Filkins has, for the past ten years, managed to frequently be in the wrong place at the right time.

By: CHRISTOPHER GRAY | November 05, 2008

Table of content

Jim Harrison’s road trip
Jim Harrison’s fiction and essays are built from his particular blend of earthiness and erudition.

By: BILL BEUTTLER | October 28, 2008

Excerpts from Hippos

An excerpt from And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks
I got home about 3:45 after eating breakfast at Riker’s on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue

By: JACK KEROUAC AND WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS | October 22, 2008

A historical beat in Hippos

At last, Kerouac and Burroughs's co-authored noir novel, And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks, resurfaces.
On a Sunday afternoon in December of 1997 I hooked up with the poet Jim McCrary at a Greenwich Village saloon.

By: GEORGE KIMBALL | October 24, 2008

Scarlet letters

The uptight killjoy in us
Sarah Vowell’s fifth book, The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead) — released on October 7 — examines New England Puritans with a meticulously researched, critical-yet-comical eye.

By: CAITLIN E. CURRAN | October 09, 2008

Pilgrims’ progress

Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies
India, 1838. The opium business is booming, and drug money fills the British Empire’s coffers, offsetting a trade imbalance created by imports of Chinese tea and silk. But now the emperor wants the drug trade stopped.

By: CHRIS WANGLER | October 08, 2008

Genre bender

Joe Hill’s scary stories reflect our worst fears
At a time when real-life events seem both horrifying and surreal, 20th Century Ghosts raises the question: Who needs monsters, when we have our messed-up minds, to contend with?

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | October 02, 2008

David Foster Wallace — 1962–2008

Overhead baggage
A story called “Forever Overhead” by David Foster Wallace appeared in the 1992 edition of Best American Short Stories .

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | September 26, 2008

Positively Phil

Roth goes back to college
We all know Philip Roth’s preoccupations.

By: RICHARD BECK | September 16, 2008

Getting religion right (and left)

Portland author explores Catholic faith and politics
“Religion is seen to be the province of the political right,” Chris Korzen says.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Water wars

Bottlemania puts a local story on the national stage
Elizabeth Royte’s new book, Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought It , is a frank reminder of just how ubiquitous bottled water has become.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Reading roundup

Autumn’s authors about town
This fall’s regional literary scene will see abstinence and desire, ghosts and dykes, convicts and Christians, toxic water bottles and yummy food.

By: DEIRDRE FULTON | September 10, 2008

Holy roller

Marilynne Robinson’s Home
Marilynne Robinson’s Home is haunted.

By: DANA KLETTER | September 09, 2008

Winners and sinners

Barth, Bolaño, Roth, Morrison, and more
Ah, fall, when Nobel Prize winners are announced — and, now, when past winners turn up with more good reading.

By: BARBARA HOFFERT | September 11, 2008

World without end

After we're gone
Will the Earth miss us when we’re gone?

By: JEFF INGLIS | September 03, 2008

Out of this world

Benjamin Rosenbaum’s The Ant King
The worlds Rosenbaum creates feel less like a separate or “alternate” reality and more like a colorful, if complicated, extension of the one we know.

By: NINA MACLAUGHLIN | August 26, 2008

War stories

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.

By: CHARLES TAYLOR | August 19, 2008

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BLOGS

Mass. Women's Schools Make Good
Talking Politics | November 22, 2008 at 6:08 PM

Chuck In Cuffs, And Other Cheery News
November 21, 2008 at 9:02 AM

New In The Phoenix -- The Roxbury Mosque
November 19, 2008 at 3:01 PM

Update: Dory Waxman on pier issue
About Town | November 19, 2008 at 10:34 AM

What's that president-elect guy's name?
November 18, 2008 at 2:29 PM