The complicated history of one of New York City’s immigrants, a former Hungarian General who realizes he spent one of his best days with his worst enemies.
Books
Posted inBooks, Fiction
Between Generals: A Newly Translated Short Story by Antonio Tabucchi
The complicated history of one of New York City’s immigrants, a former Hungarian General who realizes he spent one of his best days with his worst enemies.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Slavery and Freedom in New York City
The story of slavery in New York, the messy path to abolition, and a shameful history with which America has yet to come to terms.
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews
The Perils of Writing About Your Own Family: A Conversation with George Hodgman
“Memoir is a total minefield, as you know. It’s best if you write the book and leave the country.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Profiles & Interviews, Story
The Perils of Writing About Your Own Family: A Conversation with George Hodgman
“Memoir is a total minefield, as you know. It’s best if you write the book and leave the country.”
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
Why (and How) the U.S. Overthrew Iran’s Democratic Government
In 1953 the United States was still new to Iran. Many Iranians thought of Americans as friends, supporters of the fragile democracy they had spent half a century trying to build. It was Britain, not the United States, that they demonized as the colonialist oppressor that exploited them. Since the early years of the twentieth […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Quotes
The Bestseller That Warned Us About California’s Water Problem
When most of us think of California’s irrigated acres, we visualize lush fields growing tomatoes, artichokes, strawberries, and grapes. But in California, the biggest user of underground water, more irrigation water is used for feed crops and pasture than for all these specialty crops combined. In fact, 42 percent of California’s irrigation goes to produce […]
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction, Story
Tennessee Williams on His Women, His Writer’s Block, and Whether It All Mattered
Tennessee Williams tasked James Grissom with seeking out each of the women (and few men) who had inspired his work—Maureen Stapleton, Lillian Gish, Marlon Brando and others—so that he could ask them a question: had Tennessee Williams, or his work, ever mattered?
Posted inBooks, Nonfiction
Tennessee Williams on His Women, His Writer’s Block, and Whether It All Mattered
Tennessee Williams tasked James Grissom with seeking out each of the women (and few men) who had inspired his work—Maureen Stapleton, Lillian Gish, Marlon Brando and others—so that he could ask them a question: had Tennessee Williams, or his work, ever mattered?
Posted inBooks, Fiction, Quotes
The Woes of the Corporate Anthropologist
In classical anthropology, there’s a rigid distinction between “field” and “home.” Field’s where you go to do your research, immersing yourself, sometimes at great personal risk, in a maelstrom of raw, unsorted happening. Home’s where you go to sort and tame it: catalogue it, analyze it, transform it in to something meaningful. But when the […]