Oh, that Jewish problem

“Does the English Department Have a Jewish Problem?” This was the bait to trap unwary Modern Language Association conventioneers into attend...

Stripping away the prejudice

Why the Washington Post saw fit to publish it is unclear—it has small news value and less new insight—but the novelist Julianna Baggott, wh...

The permanent home of language

Not too surprisingly, Patrick Kurp finds himself reading more books these days and fewer things online, including blogs. The reason? His “f...

Merry shopping holiday

Since I don’t want to be one of those “ Jewish guys ” who “trash up the malls every year” with expressions of Christmas cheer that I have no...

Five Books of doctors

With the Democratic Party “ unwavering ” in its determination to rebuild American health care from top to bottom, regardless of public oppos...

Grade appeal

Semester grades were due yesterday. I submitted them on time, and then fell into a deep and untroubled sleep. I was suffering from the exhau...

Spam comments

A new kind of spam comment has begun to be submitted for moderation. Since the Japanese-language advertisements for Japanese porn and the of...

Categories of the novel

Robert Liddell , the English novelist whose close friendships with Elizabeth Taylor and Barbara Pym influenced the course of the English nov...

Books I couldn’t finish

Everyone has a list of the best books he read during the year. The Amateur Reader compiles an idiosyncratic list of some book bloggers’ lis...

Waist-deep in student papers

I will not be posting anything very intelligent or even intelligible today, for that matter. I am waist-deep in student papers, in which sla...

The decade in review

In replying to my “realistically pessimistic” prediction that 2010 probably won’t be a great year for books, Kerry (no last name) at Hungry...

Sentences

In an interview with the Washington Post shortly after Goldengrove was published, Francine Prose sighed, “I would really like, before thi...

2010 probably won’t be a great year for books either

At the beginning of the year, the Millions enthused that 2009 might be a great year for books. It didn’t turn out that way, sadly. But ther...

Happy Hanukkah

And a merry season of rededication to all!

Conversion is a romance

It is part of Francine Prose’s genius to have spotted that Middlemarch is a conversion narrative. When she set out to rewrite Eliot’s “stud...

Britain to leave free world

Won’t be long now .

The decline of publishing

Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews will close up shop at the end of the year, its owners announced yesterday. Like Max Boot, writi...

Mothers and the novel

In a salty and unsparing examination of her vampire romances, Mario the Epicurean gives Stephanie Meyer her due (“Twelve-year-old girls cou...

December 7, 1941: The Review reviewed

At the beginning of every week, Levi Asher runs an enjoyable feature that he calls “Reviewing the Review ,” in which he slices through the ...