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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

Terror-fied

Slavoj Žižek’s revolution
This new grand-theoretical manifesto might be completely daft.

By GEORGE SCIALABBA | August 12, 2008

Car talk

A close look at driving
For days post-late-merge, Vanderbilt had feelings of guilt and confusion.

By AMY FINCH | August 04, 2008

Rural libertarians

Disorganized crime, rendered elegantly, in Arkansas
For something so full of personal quirks and whimsical detail, John Brandon's first novel, Arkansas, is a sober, even dignified, read.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | July 30, 2008

Victim, not vixen

Sex, death, and the filthy rich
Florence Evelyn Nesbit was the most beautiful woman who ever lived.

By CLIF GARBODEN | July 29, 2008

Tricky Dick

Philip K. Dick's second Library of America volume
The Philip K. Dick phenomenon might be petering out.

By PETER KEOUGH | July 28, 2008

Islander

Julie Hecht’s self-help
There’s still time to spend some of your summer with Julie Hecht.

By JON GARELICK | July 22, 2008

Beat Generation

Ed Lin’s second novel is an authentic portrait of Chinatown in 1976
Set in New York City’s Chinatown during America’s bicentennial and the pessimistic aftermath of the Vietnam War, Ed Lin’s second novel, This is a Bust, is ripe with political, institutional, and racial turmoil.

By CHRISTOPHER GRAY | July 09, 2008

Bookman

Larry McMurtry’s life in the trade
Larry McMurtry, the best I can tell, remains the only man to have both won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction and written an Academy Award–winning screenplay.

By GEORGE KIMBALL | July 08, 2008

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