A strange and telling bit of literary trivia is that two of the greatest English-language novelists of the last half-century — Cormac McCarthy and Don Delillo — were not big readers when they were boys. Both took up reading as …
In conversation with Philip Roth
Perhaps too much of Philip Roth’s energies were devoted to explaining or defending himself. You could not be with Philip for any period of time before he would enlist you in the agenda of “defending” him — against a plethora …
How America went berserk
My sister is a teacher in America, which means she has had to teach her fourth-grade students about how to defend themselves against people who might walk into her public school with guns. Once, during a false alarm, her class …