Books - Quillette

The Greatest American Western Novel of All

Elmer Kelton’s ‘The Time It Never Rained’ is an overlooked classic.

Kevin Mims

23 Nov 2023 · 12 min read

Man Out of Time

A look back at the career of Avery Corman, who found popular success with ‘Kramer versus Kramer’ before running afoul of feminism.

Kevin Mims

6 Oct 2023 · 18 min read

The Communication Revolution

Like the first iPhone, Gutenberg’s Bible opened up avenues of development that entrepreneurs have been exploiting ever since.

James Hannam

27 Sep 2023 · 10 min read

Remembering ‘Exodus’

A perennially controversial bestseller turns 65.

Kevin Mims

4 Sep 2023 · 17 min read

On Marriage and Happiness

It is easy for a successful writer to advise that career success isn’t that important. Would a failed writer agree?

Kevin Mims

26 Aug 2023 · 8 min read

Milan Kundera: The Nobel Prize for Literature Winner We Never Had

Few writers in our time were more committed to the novel or had more idealism about the heights the form could scale.

Robin Ashenden

11 Jul 2023 · 12 min read

The Sorrow and the Self-Pity

Michel Houellebecq’s new memoir reveals a man quick to find fault with others but slow to accept responsibility for his woes.

RJ Smith

26 Jun 2023 · 7 min read

‘The Princess Bride’ at 50

A look back at William Goldman’s bonkers metafictional novel ‘The Princess Bride,’ which later became a much-loved family film.

Kevin Mims

19 Jun 2023 · 17 min read

Roald Dahl’s Forgotten Novel, 75 Years On

Before finding fame as a children’s author, Dahl penned the first novel on nuclear war to be published after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

Christian Kriticos

12 Jun 2023 · 14 min read

The Sardonic Inferno

At its best, Amis’s fiction broke open the locked door behind which our culture tries to keep its skeletons hidden.

Matt Hanson

2 Jun 2023 · 6 min read

The Dualism of Duluoz

An eagerly awaited new edition of Gerald Nicosia’s splendid Kerouac biography provides the definitive portrait of a great artist and a profoundly troubled man.

David S. Wills

1 Jun 2023 · 15 min read

The Hammett and Chandler of Gay Detective Fiction

How the books of George Baxt and Joseph Hansen changed the genre.

Kevin Mims

30 May 2023 · 16 min read

The Girl of the Endless Summer

How ‘Gidget’ helped to put surfing on the map.

Kevin Mims

12 May 2023 · 20 min read

The Man Who Invented the Modern Cop Novel

Joseph Wambaugh’s crime fiction has been much imitated but seldom equalled.

Kevin Mims

23 Apr 2023 · 20 min read

Orwell and Socialism

Reflections on the Western Left’s fragmented ideology.

Michael C. Anderson

21 Apr 2023 · 7 min read