The deep conservatism of Agatha Christie
Her stories always saw good triumph over evil, while resisting social anarchies
Books
Thursday
Sunday
Working out isn’t so new after all
From religion to war, exercise over the centuries has been shaped by many influences
Thursday
Writing poetry in East Germany
A new book documents how art emerged out of brutality and socialism
Sunday
The age of the media explainer
Pundits and scientists love to explain, but what if the answer is too complicated?
Monday
Getting the jokes in Proust
A dismaying number of Proust readers don’t realize it’s supposed to be funny
Reality bit
True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us by Danielle Lindemann reviewed
Reading gaol
Sentence: Ten Years and a Thousand Books in Prison by Daniel Genis reviewed
Picking a fight
Why Argument Matters by Lee Siegel reviewed
Sex and the city
Cleopatra and Frankenstein by Coco Mellors reviewed
Poor little rich girls
Heiresses: The Lives of the Million Dollar Babies by Laura Thompson reviewed
The last conservative critic?
Jeet Heer wonders if Terry Teachout was the last of his kind
Thursday
Reading during a pandemic
There have always been brilliant books limited to small spaces and situations
Monday
Writing and the conservative impulse
All writers are, in a certain sense, conservative
Tuesday
Siri Hustvedt and saving the personal essay
It doesn’t need to die; it just needs to find a life beyond its author
Monday
‘The Fifth Head of Cerberus’ at 50
Check out Gene Wolfe’s minor masterpiece
Monday
Who killed Bambi?
The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest by Felix Salten reviewed
The invisible hand
The Maid by Nita Prose reviewed
One hundred years of Ulysses
James Joyce’s Ulysses caused a sensation on its publication a century ago
On literary cross-dressing
The pre-woke literary world considered authorial freedom sacrosanct
Style and substance
Réginald-Jérôme de Mans evokes a Parisian world of glittering elegance