Literary Fan Fiction: John Banville Does Raymond Chandler

Teddy Roosevelt, Not-So-Great Reformer

The Contemporary Novel of Ideas Finds its Footing

How a Pope Helped Mussolini Rise to Power

Lorrie Moore Is a Mash-up of Contemporary Fiction

Big Star's Alex Chilton Wrote the Script for Every Indie-Rock Recluse

Lorrie Moore Has a Politics Problem

'The Poetry of Sex' Isn't Actually About Sex

Malcolm Cowley Was One of the Best Literary Tastemakers of the Twentieth Century. Why Were His Politics So Awful?

Which Creates Better Writers: An MFA Program or New York City?

Conservative Critics Say My New Israel Book Is Anti-Semitic. They Must Not Have Read It Very Closely

Why Is Robert Gates Angry?

A Little Narcissism Is Good For You

Don't Call Henry David Thoreau a Hermit

The 150-Year Hunt for the Great American Novel

George Eliot's Strangely Modern Life

John Sutherland's Little History of Literature Skims Too Lightly Over Its Subject

The Book Industry Is So Scared of Amazon, No One Will Talk on the Record

The Five Worst Books Ever Written By Great Authors

Too Much Ambition Doesn't Always Break a Novel