MOST RECENT BLOG POSTS
Wrapping it up How it feels to finish writing a biography--and give it a new title....
SMcL on BHL Checking out on the latest from France's playboy philosopher...
Anxiety of influence William Maxwell, plagiarist. Sort of....
It's official Harcourt will be bringing out Rhythm Man, my Louis Armstrong biography, in the fall of 2009....
Just when you thought literary culture was dead . . . With mainstream newspapers abandoning books coverage and their historic role in literary culture, the young, the hip, and the tasteful...
Who built this city? A new history looks at Dallas' mythology: "the city of hate" became "the city that works" became "the shapeless city"...
Hearing is believing Guess what cartoon character Raymond Chandler sounded like?...
5 x 5 Books For The Swim-Obsessed by Jenny Davidson A Top Five of well-written books about the aquatic life....
Black and white and brain dead all over. Eric Alterman and Scott McLemee on why newspapers are getting thinner and dumber. Look at who's running them....
Books, books and Larry McMurtry's "Books" The Lonesome Dove author loves book collecting more than writing. But is it also dying like the Old West?...
Black Elk, Inc. Speaks (Saying, "Show Me the Money") University presses deal with market forces in various ways...
Lunchtime for Burroughs Plans are on for a huge symposium in Paris to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of "Naked Lunch."...
A death I mourn the death of Thomas M. Disch, novelist and poet, who wrote libretti for two of my operas....
Semicolonoscopy George Orwell was a big fat liar. Sort of....
The bees in their hives Reading Anthony Powell and Sybille Bedford....
Kindle Garten University presses team up with Amazon...
Swift Boating America's most incisive critic is too busy to read the books he reviews...
Honoris causa The University of Chicago Press has discovered the crime novels of Richard Stark, a/k/a Donald E. Westlake....
Minor key versus major Yet more Jane Chords....
Janes from James and others More on the Jane Chord....
Particularly individualizing and not ungraceful A letter from Henry James about the names of his characters....
5 x 5 Books Where Double Agents Lurk by David Samuels Books about double agents, real, fictional, and metaphorical....
The machine age I belong to the first generation of biographers whose work was shaped by the invention of the personal computer....
More Recommended Readings Some less-publicized picks of the season, from a sad young literary man (not)...