archive

When lit-crit mattered

From Salon, Glenn Greenwald on vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News; and fear and loafing in the Green Zone: Welcome to Baghdad's post-decadent stronghold: Menacing Peruvian mercenaries, Chinese prostitutes, concealed beer and doughnuts — and Iraqis eyeing a foreboding future. More and more on The Dark Side by Jane Meyer. Paul Bloomfield on Iraq: Beyond what's best for us. From The Nation, an article on Rachel Maddow's life and career. Financier and Democratic moneyman Steve Rattner seems to have it all — looks can be deceiving. An excerpt from You Don't Know Me: A Citizen's Guide to Republican Family Values by Win McCormack. McCain's favorite name? A visual guide to the official campaign blogs. From Guernica, an interview with Luc Sante. When lit-crit mattered: A review of Praising It New. The roll call of famous gout sufferers is long and distinguished; it includes Ben Franklin, Henry James and Karl Marx. With his books on the history of books, Nicholas Basbanes has become the foremost chronicler of bibliomania. A review of Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea. How magicians control your mind: Magic isn't just a bag of tricks —  it's a finely-tuned technology for shaping what we see, and now researchers are extracting its lessons. From The New York Times, the Yuppie scum weigh in, 20 years later.