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I emphasize throughout what I call the gradually realizing kingdom of God — a process of transformation, like that of an undeveloped photograph dipped in chemicals. The process itself adds detail and depth to the image, which grows more distinct and plausible by the moment. — Jay Parini, Jesus: The Human Face of God (New Harvest/Amazon Books, […]
Read MoreA state of emergency is declared. You fly tonight. What do you take with you? Clothes? Thermos? Hatchet? Naaah: books, of course. Fortunately you know of a safehouse nearby. A safehouse by the name of SpeakEasy. That’s right, comrades, there’s a Seriously Entertaining way out of this crisis. Between our six guests next week, we […]
Read More“There’s some of us, yourself included I’m sure, have seen and borne witness to a number of terrible things. And as you’ll know, those things haunt a man.” — Klyde in After the Fire, a Still Small Voice by Evie Wyld Evie Wyld is the award-winning author of All the Birds, Singing, published by Pantheon earlier this […]
Read MoreA wedding was always an aphrodisiac, full of temporary pairings driven by vicarious hope. Love was in the air, weak and snappy as static electricity. – Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead (Knopf, 2012) Maggie Shipstead‘s debut novel, Seating Arrangements (Knopf, 2012), is a witty social comedy with an exploding whale at its heart. Set largely over the course […]
Read MoreHonouring J.D. McClatchy in 1991, the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters stated, “It may be that no more eloquent poet will emerge in his American generation.” Since then, his reputation has grown as exponentially as his output. A poet, essayist, librettist — and Professor of English at Yale — McClatchy is certainly […]
Read MoreTo create categories is the enslavement of the categorized because the aim of every state is total control over the people who live in it. What better way is there than to categorize according to sex, about which people have so many hang-ups? — Gore Vidal This week I spoke to Tim Teeman about his […]
Read MoreTragedy is full of forbidden desires: the love of Phaedra for her stepson Hippolytus; of the dying Aschenbach for the beautiful Tadzio; of Martin Gray for his goat in Albee’s play. In tragedy, so in life. Daniel Bergner’s The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys Into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing (HarperCollins, 2009) describes […]
Read MoreSPOILERS throughout! Also, well worth seeing Vol. I, which I reviewed here, before seeing Vol. II, which offers no recap for the uninitiated. NYMPH()MANIAC Vol. II is a fist to the throat, a film raw with despair. It picks up where Vol. I left off, with Joe’s anguish over her sudden loss of sexual feeling, and documents the […]
Read MoreEverything is different. Everything is tense. Even y’all can feel, like, the intensity… Brooklyn first year. You know what I’m sayin’? Excitement… so everything is at an all-time high. I mean, at an all-time high. That goes for the referees, the ball-boys, the fans, janitors, you know what I’m sayin’? — Reggie Evans, Brooklyn Nets […]
Read MoreKate Mosse has been a major fixture on the British literary scene for two decades. In 1996 she established the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which has done great things for women writers around the world, including past winners Lionel Shriver, Marilynne Robinson, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zadie Smith. She is also a major novelist in her own […]
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