"Indecision," Benjamin Kunkel's debut novel, seems awfully heavy for a trim, quick-paced 240 page book. Maybe that's because the book is bogged down by the hope and hype surrounding it. After all, Kunkel is a young, handsome, accomplished Harvard grad.
Lately I've been looking back at boyhood books, which now seem filled with lessons for statecraft and strategy that I missed when I first read them. Here are some, in chronological order: Wu Ch'eng-en, "Journey to the West" (aka "Monkey").
Books for a desert island? What a lovely idea. I assume you don't want simply classic works by authors that everyone reads. In that case my favorites are Austen, Flaubert and James. There are so many books and it's so hard to choose, but if I had to...
Since 1931, Westport Country Playhouse in Westport, Conn., has hosted monumental actors and actresses and played host to the stage debuts and finales of such playwrights as George Bernard Shaw, Eugene O'Neill and A.R. Gurney. The theatre's recent...
Assuming that every well-prepared desert island comes stocked with the Bible and Shakespeare (huge cliches, yes, but still bottomlessly resourceful), and since my professional job is to read plays, almost every day, I'll skip that bunch. Instead...
In his quiet way, Nick Hornby is writing some of the most elegant and ambitious prose in the English language. "A Long Way Down," released this summer, is the story of four people who meet on the top of a tower block where they have each gone with the...
Bret Easton Ellis is not an author for the faint of heart. At his most sedate, Ellis merely subjects his characters to alienation and despair, along with rapid self-destruction (fueled by quantities of drugs that would daunt even the late Hunter S.
As you ask me about my favorite books, I appreciate the question and I appreciate the difficulty of answering it. It is the word "favorite" that goads me. I think I want to answer in this way: "Favorite" are those books that meant so much to me, and...
Literary people are generally frightened of the term science fiction, and reviewers have been struggling to find a different way to describe Kazuo Ishiguro's compelling new novel. It isn't properly an "alternate history," as some writers have...
"Homage to Catalonia" -- George Orwell -- As a historian, what I love about "Homage to Catalonia" is that one can see in his experience of Spanish Civil War not only the origins of World War II but also the Cold War. What makes it so interesting is...
As commencement draws near, many graduating Elis will look back on their four years to examine what they will take away from their undergraduate experience. Some Yalies graduate with near-perfect GPAs, many leave campus with lifelong friendships and an...
In a world with hugely selling hip-hop albums, million-dollar rap videos and trend-setting wankstas, it's a fact that hip-hop is cool and damn important. But no one knows better than Amanda McCall and Albertina Rizzo, authors of the upcoming 'Hold My...
While Harvard eases its collective migraine caused by Larry Summers' girl problems, another headache is on the horizon for our dear Cantabs. Forget the women-in-science controversy, a new book written by one of the school's recent alums thoughtfully...
Kagan says: These are books I would readily recommend to anyone, books that have stayed with me and that I think about, books that everyone should read. 1. The Selfish Gene -- Richard Dawkins. This is the best general introduction to evolution that I...
Nipping at the heels of his monumentally successful first novel, Jonathan Safran Foer's sophomore effort is quick to satisfy expectations. "Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud" is focused, compassionate, funny and sad, and it has the virtue of being...
Books I bought in January: "The Polysyllabic Spree" by Nick Hornby, "High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby, "Wonder Boys" by Michael Chabon. Books I read in January: all the ones above, "Vernon God Little" by D.B.C. Pierre, "The Grim Grotto" by Lemony Snicket.
1. "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov. Turning from science fact to science fiction, the Asimov robot stories are miniature masterpieces, each working out a single idea, with a twist at the end. That said, the human characters range from cardboard cutouts to...
There was a moment reading Tom Wolfe's engaging but flawed collegiate epic, "I Am Charlotte Simmons," when I nearly fell out of my bed: the mention of my tiny, all-boys high school in Boston. Wolfe's description of Roxbury Latin as embodying "an...
Philip Roth is not famous for reticence and modesty -- his personal habits seem to have earned him as many enemies as his vitriolic prose -- but his latest novel glows with a moral righteousness, a clarity of purpose and a sense of urgency that sets it...
1. "Anna Karenina" by Leo Tolstoy. Arguably the greatest novel ever written. For a student of the psychology of emotion, a wonderful set of case studies. And what's not to like about a story with a character named Levin? Happy desert islands are all...
