‘American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,’ by Bernard-Henri Lévy - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

‘American Vertigo: Traveling America in the Footsteps of Tocqueville,’ by Bernard-Henri Lévy - The New York Times Book Review - New York Times

Any American with a big urge to write a book explaining France to the French should read this book first, to get a sense of the hazards involved. Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French […]

Wait, poetry’s dying? Naw…

Poetry? It’ll soon be about as popular as morris dancing
Subjects: poetry

My first and last post on James Frey

“Arthur Freeman is reported to have said of memoirists that they are men who have too little imagination to write fiction and too bad a memory to write the truth.”
- Vladimir Nabokov
“Time and Ebb”

Subjects: frey, memoir

Not Just Another Column About Blogging - What newspaper history says about newspaper future. By Jack Shafer

Not Just Another Column About Blogging - What newspaper history says about newspaper future. By Jack Shafer
Subjects: journalism, blogging

The Ledge

Just read the most remarkable short story, The Ledge by Austin Bunn.
Here’s an excerpt:

And then a cry came from the rigging. Diego, swung up in the web of mainsail rope, yelled a shapeless sound and pointed frantically off the side of the ship. At port, two iridescent coils the height of three men, arched across […]

Is poetry the new prozac?

Independent Online Edition >Is poetry the new prozac?
Subjects: science, poetry

Russia plans mine on the moon by 2020

It was inevitable that space would really be explored for the purposes of industry, not science.
Russia plans mine on the moon by 2020

We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery… of the rare isotope Helium-3,” Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia […]

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s American Vertigo - If only he’d taken on the culture war. By Franklin Foer and Alan Wolfe

Bernard-Henri Lévy’s American Vertigo - If only he’d taken on the culture war. By Franklin Foer and Alan Wolfe
What does a French philospher have to tell us about America?

Subjects: politics, philosophy

The Novelist Walks - Why did Turkey drop the charges against Orhan Pamuk? By Hugh Eakin

The Novelist Walks - Why did Turkey drop the charges against Orhan Pamuk? By Hugh Eakin
Subjects: politics, literature

What happens when there’s DRM on everything?

tarmle: Burnoff: Part 1 - The Bad Guys Win

Physical bookshops are a novelty now; they only sell works that are in the public domain, and only to a few die-hard paper enthusiasts. Their prices rise steadily as demand drops and the printing and binding industry falters. Tightened regulation has made it illegal to sell second […]