Rachel Cusk – The Paris Review Interview

Rachel Cusk, The Art of Fiction No. 246 Interviewed by Sheila Heti ISSUE 232, SPRING 2020 PHOTO COURTESY OF RACHEL CUSK. Rachel Cusk was born in Canada in 1967 to British parents, who moved the family to Los Angeles, then to England, where Cusk lives to this day. She began publishing in her midtwenties—clever and assured …

How To Speak Whale

How to Speak Whale by Tom Mustill (Grand Central) Nonfiction In this book, Mustill delves into the latest research on animal communication. “Is it too much of a leap to think we might someday decode the sperm whale click for ‘mother’?” Mustill writes. “For ‘pain’? For ‘hello’? The answer is, of course, that we cannot know until …

Wallace Stegner – The Challenge to Preserve

Introduction to the "Wilderness Letter"Here is an introduction to Wallace Stegner's "Wilderness Letter" (1960) written by Stegner for The Living Wilderness magazine in December 1980. The Geography of Hope Wallace Stegner  When I wrote my "wilderness letter" to David Pesonen 20 years ago, I had probably been prompted to do so by David Brower. He was usually …

“The Exile Returns” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in America

Profiles February 14, 1994 Issue The Exile Returns Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn posed such a threat to the Soviet Politburo that it exiled him after the publication of “The Gulag Archipelago,” but for twenty years the West was also a reluctant audience for his uncompromising views. Now, having completed his historical opus, the author is going home, …

Francois Mitterrand – Man of Action, Man of Words – Review of Philip Short’s, A Taste For Intrigue.

Francois Mitterrand - Man of Action, Man of Words - Review of Philip Short’s, A Taste For Intrigue. R. L. Wallace November 8, 2015 Sitting up late one evening at Latche, I hear, all around me, talk of life and death, the origins of the world and the existence of God, the beyond and nothingness. …

David Foster Wallace – Deciderization 2007 – A Special Report

This piece was written by Wallace for the 2007 issue of "The Best American Essays" by Houghton Mifflin publishers. For anyone who reads that publication and or is interested in essays this piece reads as fresh today as it did then.  I think it’s unlikely that anyone is reading this as an introduction. Most of …

William T. Vollmann – “Nothing is true; all is permissible.”

photos: PHILIPPE MERLE/AFP/GETTYIMAGES The Atlantic Magazine Interview Writers Can Do Anything William T. Vollmann, author of Last Stories and Other Stories, explains why he works by an assassin's credo: "Nothing is true; all is permissible." 1.0k 225 JOE FASSLER JUL 16, 2014 By Heart is a series in which authors share and discuss their all-time favorite …

Susan Sontag – A biography – Review

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/03/books/review/McCulloch.t.html?_r=0 Susan Sontag - A Biography Daniel Schreiber Translated from the German by David Dollenmayer Daniel Schreiber has created a wonderfully written, well organized short biography on Susan Sontag. The book is fluid in pace and provides an ample well of historical context to enable the reader to see the many connections and subtleties of …

In Putin’s Nationalist Russia, a Tolstoy as Cultural Diplomat

It is not a surprise that literature aids all countries in showing a human face in the midst of hard-edge politics and ideology.This piece is from The New York Times. Follwing the NYT piece is aninterview with Putin and Tolstoy concerning the culture policy document. RLW CreditJames Hill for The New York Times By RACHEL …

The War In Ukraine – A Frenchman’s Eyewitness Report – Bernard-Henri Levy

Bernard-Henri Levy: Poroshenko's visit with death in Kramatorsk before fateful meeting with Putin Feb. 15, 2015, 12:31 p.m. | Op-ed — by Bernard-Henri Lévy - from Kyiv Post - Ukraine’s leading English-language newspaper. A handout picture taken and released by the Ukrainian presidential press service shows Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (2nd R), standing next to French …

Michael Kinsley Weighs in on “The New Republic” Controversy

photo - getty images              The New Republic Magazine, a 100-year-old liberal publication was purchased recently (two years ago) by the young co-founder of Facebook ( worth $700 Million) who now wants to turn the company into a digital media company after initially announcing that he wanted to maintain the …

Garry Wills – American Thinker & Iconoclast

Photograph by Gasper Tringale.   (photo - Chris Walker, Chicago Tribune) Mr. Wills is the foremost literary journalist and thinker of our time. This article is a tribute to this iconoclast, one who has followed his own path to understanding America with intelligence, tenacity and grace. The American Mind The historian Garry Wills has written …

Creating a Level Playing Field for Arab Spring Economic Success

This is a well argued approach to building information-based economic structure in countries lacking a means of showing ownership of assets and rights. This was fundamental to Peru's advancement. Its an unlikely conclusion to draw without the dramatic example of Peru. It makes sense and if it works, its the right thing to do as opposed …

Amazon – Dick Cavett – Hostage Taking

This is a recent post by the New Yorker Magazine. It is in further to the controversy surrounding Amazon's crude behavior to force publishers to do things the Amazon way and oh, to pay up. JULY 10, 2014 AN “UNBELIEVABLE” ENCOUNTER WITH AMAZON POSTED BY MALCOLM GLADWELL      

The Front Page 2.0 – By Michael Kinsley

Just when you thought it was over. From : VANITY FAIR MAGAZINE - MAY 2014 In most hand-wringing debates about the future of newspapers, high-quality journalism is seen as doomed by the Internet. The author—V.F.’s newest columnist—begs to disagree. By Michael Kinsley BY CARL MYDANS/TIME & LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES.THE WAY IT WAS Multiple editions, breaking …