In Memoriam, 2023
A tribute to three pop-fiction authors who passed away this year.
Kevin Mims
· 14 min read
Books
A collection of 226 posts
Mutual Friends: The Adventures of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins
A charming exhibition at London’s Charles Dickens Museum provides a fascinating glimpse into the private lives of two great English writers.
Hannah Gal
· 7 min read
The Greatest American Western Novel of All
Elmer Kelton’s ‘The Time It Never Rained’ is an overlooked classic.
Kevin Mims
· 13 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
· 19 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
· 10 min read
Remembering ‘Exodus’
A perennially controversial bestseller turns 65.
Kevin Mims
· 18 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
· 9 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
· 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
· 8 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
· 18 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
· 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
· 7 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
· 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
· 17 min read
The Girl of the Endless Summer
How ‘Gidget’ helped to put surfing on the map.
Kevin Mims
· 20 min read