Reading Flannery O’Connor under quarantine
The great writer wrestles with the questions of our time
Literature
Monday
Friday
Literature reminds us that indolence is underrated
What are we missing out on in our endless pursuit of productivity?
Monday
The Optimist’s Daughter at fifty
A rich and daring novel reminds us that memory must be given its due
Monday
Et in Arcadia ego
Interwar Oxford was less a world of dreaming spires and more one of constipated poets
Monday
Cancel culture gets its comeuppance
Not just politicians but artists are fighting back against its unreasonable demands
Thursday
Was Penelope really a ‘silenced’ woman?
She stands up to her suitors and they admire her trick to delay her marriage
Wednesday
Why does Hollywood ruin literature’s best characters?
What Kenneth Branagh has done to Poirot borders on literary mutiny
Wednesday
P.J. O’Rourke mastered the art of teasing
The late great satirist chose pleasant ribbing over contempt, and made us all laugh along the way
Thursday
The deep conservatism of Agatha Christie
Her stories always saw good triumph over evil, while resisting social anarchies
Monday
The death of literature
Literature in the West is dead for the simple reason that the West itself is virtually dead
Monday
On literary cross-dressing
The pre-woke literary world considered authorial freedom sacrosanct
Thursday
Black tie in NYC
Arriving at the American Museum of Natural History, I present my vaccination card and negative Covid test result
Monday
Why we should venerate Evelyn Waugh
Waugh was unquestionably among the greatest novelists of the 20th century
Why trigger warnings don’t work
They only reached popular consciousness in the 2010s, when feminist blogs used them ahead of content about sexual violence
Monday
How Harvard went woke
Harvard University claims to be America’s finest — but it has become a hotbed of timidity and bigotry
Wednesday
The author in full: Tom Wolfe
Wolfe excelled at capturing human foibles and petty vanities; anything deeper than that escaped him
Monday
The prophetic Raymond Chandler
Chandler’s California is a cultural desert stretching along the western edge of a continental wasteland
Saturday
Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a guidebook for the present day
A powerful totalitarian state is no longer needed to coerce human beings
Monday
Life ‘n’ Arts podcast: celebrating American audacity with William Giraldi
William Giraldi, author of the novels Busy Monsters and Hold the Dark ahead of publishing his first collection of essays,
