Et in Arcadia ego
Interwar Oxford was less a world of dreaming spires and more one of constipated poets
Books
Monday
The imperfect spy
A Spy in Plain Sight: The Inside Story of the FBI and Robert Hanssen, America’s Most Damaging Russian Spy by Lis Wiehl reviewed
Faeries and queens
Flint and Mirror by John Crowley reviewed
Paradais City
Paradais by Fernanda Melchor reviewed
You had to be there
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy by Mark Rozzo reviewed
Standing with J.K. Rowling
A certain sector of the Harry Potter fandom has decided that the author is the devil incarnate
Sunday
Robert B. Shaw sees things as they are
He is one of those poets who is profound without sounding so
Sunday
Is the white male novelist disappearing?
They’re not gone, but they are being ignored by literary prize committees
Friday
Who’s ready for another Biden family memoir?
Because the president’s little sister is giving us one regardless
Thursday
The Stepford Wives and today’s empty feminism
We must begrudgingly acknowledge what the author got right
Thursday
Waugh in Hollywood
Seventy-five years ago, Evelyn Waugh headed to Hollywood to sell Brideshead Revisited
Fit to print
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial: The Reporters Who Took On a World at War by Deborah Cohen reviewed
Diversifying democracy
The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure by Yascha Mounk reviewed
Femmes fatales in fiction and life
American literature is intensely preoccupied with the beautiful female psychopath
A private life
Private Notebooks: 1914-1916 by Ludwig Wittgenstein, edited and translated by Marjorie Perloff, reviewed
Beautiful and damned
Astrid Sees All by Natalie Standiford reviewed
Dirty realists
The beauty of dirty realism is that it captures regular life in all its stupefying, and sometimes transcendent, malaise
Monday
Against Hope
Hope: A Literary History by Adam Potkay reviewed
Friday
Time for Jack Kerouac to hit the road
He and the Beats aren’t nearly as good as annoying young men imagine
Monday
Imagining Rimbaud
The more one knows about Rimbaud and literary criticism, the more one will enjoy the book’s subtler jibes
