April 26, 2019
In Defense of a Literary Canon
Mild controversy erupted on Twitter early this month after Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg released a list of his ten favorite books. To me, the list felt a little like […]
June 19, 2018
On Aesthetics and Politics: Alisa Ganieva’s The Mountain and the Wall
There’s a facile distinction that’s often drawn between a novel’s aesthetics and its politics, one generally made by those in favor of the former over the latter, as if literature […]
May 24, 2018
On “The Death of the Novel”
Declaring that the novel is dead sometimes feels like a pastime as old as the novel itself. Even men in the nineteenth century would lament how the novel was being […]
May 23, 2018
Your Online Dating Profile Written by Famous Writers
The Misunderstood Detective With a Poet’s Soul: About You: You love to dwell in uncertainties. You relish the chance to analyze anything, whether it be a text, film, or person. […]
July 26, 2017
NSFW: On “Hysterical Literature,” Leaves of Grass, and the Sexy Reading Movement
Somewhere in the foggy realm between performance art and porno, on a YouTube channel where a poem drives up page views, a woman reads aloud from a paperback book. She […]
May 10, 2012
Mix Tape: Thematically Speaking, Death’s Still in the Lead
Check out this infographic of the 2011 Booker Longlist novels broken down by theme. Death is still your best bet by an overwhelming margin, but maybe Nanny Trust Issues, Homicidal […]