Forward into the pastYesterday at a used bookstore in New York, I got a Sixties paperback of Letters from the Earth, a collection of Mark Twain pieces that he...
For the curiousThinking three things about Robinson Crusoe today: 1. I had a children's version of this from Scholastic Book Club, a severe condensation...
HarrietYesterday I realized a minor ambition of a few years' standing and read Harriet the Spy. I discovered I love this book and I love this...
Missing timeThe third installment in my pre-Halloween series: Robert M. Coates, parallel reality, and the ghost story without ghosts.
The haunted innFor Halloween month, I'm writing a weekly series focusing on a few of my favorite supernatural works. First up: the iterations and...
I will go to KoreaThoughts on the successive and singular permutations (novel, film, sitcom) of a familiar and beloved comedic property.
CrossfireAt Critics at Large: my review of Michelle Dean's Sharp, concerning ten woman writers "who made an art of having an opinion."
American buffaloAt Critics at Large: My piece on the bilious, brilliant books of the Brown Buffalo, Oscar Zeta Acosta.
Take a biteI’m thrilled that an excerpt from Magic Circles has found its way into another magnificent anthology of music writing. In Sound Bites:...
Human bodies“Unless [the] would-be lover is able to replace his or her backbone with a steel rod, he or she is doomed. This is no place for love.” At...
