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The Asylum: True Tales of Madness from a Life in Fashion by Simon Doonan NY: Blue Rider Press, 2013; 288pp Simon Doonan once called Kate Moss “a working-class slag from a crap town.” This got him into hotter water than he deserved given that it was hedged by a friendly subordinate “just like me.” All […]
Read MoreFor many people, R.L. Stine‘s is a name that will induce a spasm of delicious fear. Stine has been frightening children since the publication of his first shocker, Blind Date, in 1986. And it’s fear on an industrial scale: his books have sold over four hundred million copies, prompting the New York Times to speculate […]
Read MoreA new feature for 2015, ReadEasy is your regular round-up of literary oddities, reviews, and entertainment from the World Wide Web. I'm at that bit* in my new book where I've no idea what's going on or what I'm doing. *from around page 30 to page 250 — Ian Rankin (@Beathhigh) January 13, 2015 Ahead […]
Read MoreImperfect Bliss by Susan Fales-Hill NY: Atria Books, 2012; 304pp The narrative and social challenges facing women in the early twenty-first century are at the center of Susan Fales-Hill’s second novel, the romantic comedy Imperfect Bliss. Its heroine, Bliss (Elizabeth) Harcourt, spends much of her time attempting to shield her young daughter, Bella, from the […]
Read MoreThe Baby Boom: How It Got That Way And It Wasn’t My Fault And I’ll Never Do It Again by P.J. O’Rourke NY: Grove Press, 2014; 272pp “History would have been very different,” writes P.J. O’Rourke; “a C+ at least — if the Baby Boom had ruled the world.” Born in the two decades between […]
Read MoreA new feature for 2015, ReadEasy is your regular round-up of literary oddities, reviews, and entertainment from the World Wide Web. https://twitter.com/GilbertLiz/status/553398033929760768 Watch the Golden Globes last night? Check out reviews we wrote of winners Boyhood (Best Motion Picture — Drama; Best Director — Richard Linklater; Best Supporting Actress — Patricia Arquette), Whiplash (Best Supporting […]
Read MoreAs awards season looms, with its predictable bows to prestige and heritage movies, three reasons to venture down the road less traveled by. Leviathan has been receiving messianic reviews since its premiere at Cannes last year, where it won the Best Screenplay award, and by the end of its two-and-a-half-some hours it’s easy to see […]
Read MoreA new feature for 2015, ReadEasy is your regular round-up of literary oddities, reviews, and entertainment from the World Wide Web. Meet the new year, same as the old year. Wouldn't it be nice to go a month or two w/o anything too horrible happening? — Stephen King (@StephenKing) December 31, 2014 Dan Chiasson on […]
Read MoreBeing a collection of disordered thoughts on new writing from the last year or so. There were lots of books about books. I enjoyed Rebecca Mead‘s My Life in Middlemarch (Crown Publishing, 2014) and Joanna Rakoff‘s My Salinger Year (Knopf, 2014), which both fused literary criticism and autobiography into what Joyce Carol Oates called, reviewing […]
Read MoreNo Satisfaction was a Seriously Entertaining presentation by the House of SpeakEasy at City Winery NYC on Monday, November 17, 2014. It featured the writing and speaking talents of Ruby Wax, Philip Gourevitch, Hooman Majd, Hari Dhillon (who posed this month’s “Tip of My Tongue” quizzers), Christopher Mason, Graham Moore, and Dan Povenmire. “About seven […]
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