Arts >>

Books

Love's lexicographer

David Levithan defines affection
As the editorial director at Scholastic, David Levithan is surrounded by emotional stories about adolescents. Being overexposed to such hyperbolic feelings about feelings could easily turn a writer off pursuing such ventures himself — despite the secrets he may have picked up along the way.

By: SHARON STEEL | February 10, 2011

The man in the yellow fur coat

As the Boston Athenaeum stages an Edward Gorey retrospective, his biographer reflects on the artist's lasting legacy
The cultural critic Mark Dery worked as a clerk for Manhattan's Gotham Book Mart in the early '80s. One afternoon, he was taken by surprise.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | February 05, 2011

Poems, prose, and the New Yorker

Elizabeth Bishop goes pop
After John Ashbery described Elizabeth Bishop as "the writer’s writer’s writer," reviewers repeated the witticism as if it were true. Actually, beginning with her first book, Bishop got awards and grants — that master poet politician Robert Lowell was in her corner — that gave her much more public recognition than Merrill's phrase suggests was the case.

By: WILLIAM CORBETT | February 02, 2011

Tim Wu, historian of information empires

Net brutality
It's 1934 and an engineer at Bell Labs by the name of Clarence Hickman has a secret machine in his office. It is the only one of its kind in existence.

By: CARLY CARIOLI | February 02, 2011

I was a teenage Sandinista

Deb Olin Unferth left college in the '80s to become a Communist Freedom Fighter. It didn't quite work out that way.
As a freshman philosophy major at the University of Colorado, Deb Olin Unferth fell in love with a junior named George. A pious Evangelical, George felt it was his duty to help his Communist brethren in Central America fight against their capitalist oppressors. So he did, and Unferth went with him.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 31, 2011

Review: Caroline Leavitt's family Pictures

Photo finish
Love, family, and the moments that change lives forever — these are the potent ingredients that Caroline Leavitt stirs up again and again in her fiction.

By: JULIA HANNA | January 27, 2011

How to create a readable future

Future Boston authors Jon Burrowes, Alexander Jablokov, Steven Popkes, David Alexander Smith, and Sarah Smith show us how it's done.
The actual future is a collaboration between nearly seven billion people worldwide. But creating a future can be a fun indoor sport for you and your friends.

By: SEVERAL FUTURE BOSTON AUTHORS | January 24, 2011

11 Fictional glimpses of the Boston of tomorrow

Futures past
The history of the future is not long.

By: PHOENIX STAFF | August 08, 2011

Highbrow smackdown: Writers prepare for Literary Death Match

Four writers enter, one writer leaves
Four writers participate in a Death Match. Though only one will emerge victorious, each will be heard.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 24, 2011

Interview: The authors of Future Boston on building the Boston of tomorrow

Future Boston, 15 years later
We only have three years before the aliens land. This was the future envisioned in Future Boston , an anthology by a group of local science-fiction writers published in 1995 .

By: S.I. ROSENBAUM | January 21, 2011

Interview: Christian Lander

Beyond the pale
With his first book, Stuff White People Like , and his blog of the same name, Christian Lander poked savage fun at the urban bourgeoisie. He hit a nerve and the bestseller list; it all culminated in an appearance on Conan .

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 18, 2011

Talking cures

Aminatta Forna's memories of war
Letting go is never easy. No matter what our reasons, every move we make away from someone we once loved involves regret. In a normal life, this can be bittersweet, tinged with melancholy and the sweetness of memory. In the aftermath of brutal civil war, the sadness is likely to be more palpable: absence as a wound.

By: CLEA SIMON | February 02, 2011

Hip-hop history

Dan Charnas's story is bigger than the music
Dan Charnas is aware that some disgruntled rap purists may eschew his epic tome on planet hip-hop's animated cast of titanic dick swingers.

By: CHRIS FARAONE | January 11, 2011

Review: ''American Gothic'' painter Grant Wood gets to leave the closet

American gay
Who was Grant Wood? Millions of Americans know him as the artist who painted American Gothic — and that's about it. But since his death, from pancreatic cancer, in 1942, he's become the poster boy for the right and the whipping boy of the left.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | January 07, 2011

Review: Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, And Conversations

Fast talk: A great artist bends your ear
If you are interested in the great painter Philip Guston (1913–1980), you will want this book. If you are interested in American painting from 1945 on, and into the future, you will want this book. If you enjoy a great talker in top form, you will want this book.

By: WILLIAM CORBETT | January 07, 2011

13 must-attend readings of winter 2011

Writers fight the good fight at local book events
Winter is dreadful. Books are the opposite. We offer you the following author events as antidotes to sedentary overeating and bad television.

By: EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | January 04, 2011

Search-term smackdown: Boston rivalries settled with Google Books Ngram Viewer

Golden Ngrams
Two weeks ago, Google chucked a shiny new Web toy down the chimneys of Internet-research nerds everywhere: the Google Books Ngram Viewer, a search tool/treasure hunt that shows you the frequency of specific words in literature going back to the 1500s.

By: SHAULA CLARK | December 30, 2010