How Do They Know This?
An informative and apolitical new book reminds us that statistics are not always what they seem.
Christopher J. Snowdon
· 6 min read
Books
A collection of 217 posts
Islamist Terror; Journalistic Error
In a valuable new book, historian Richard Landes argues that Western reporting on the Second Palestinian Intifada helped to seed a misunderstanding of terrorism.
Jeffrey Herf
· 19 min read
In From the Cold
Solzhenitsyn’s Ivan Denisovich at 60.
Robin Ashenden
· 15 min read
Murakami On Writing
In his new book, Murakami attempts to set the limits of what he wants people to know about him—and that isn’t much.
David S. Wills
· 11 min read
The Real Star of M*A*S*H
A personal tribute to the overlooked genius of writer W.C. Heinz.
Kevin Mims
· 13 min read
Two Hundred Years of Stendhal
2022 marks the bicentennial of the pseudonym’s transformation from literary dabbler into one of the greatest novelists of the modern age.
Robert Zaretsky
· 11 min read
Napoleon in Rags
Jann Wenner’s attempt to set the record straight only confirms the unattractive picture painted by his critics.
David S. Wills
· 13 min read
Getting Fletch Wrong
Jon Hamm’s portrayal is an improvement on Chevy Chase’s goofball routine, but still bears little relation to the amoral cad in Gregory McDonald’s novels.
Kevin Mims
· 16 min read
Peter Straub, 1943–2022
Farewell to another of the Big Six novelists from the Golden Age of American horror fiction.
Kevin Mims
· 13 min read
Go Ask Beatrice: Notes on a Dishonest Decade
An outstanding new book tells the story of a wildly successful literary hoax. But it was just one of many.
Kevin Mims
· 29 min read
The Delia Demolition
Why is the Atlantic slinging mud at the 72-year-old author of ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’ on the eve of the film’s release?
Kevin Mims
· 19 min read
Céline, Literary Antichrist
If we demand that our artists be angels, we will not have any art left to appreciate.
RJ Smith
· 9 min read
Has Olivia Manning’s ‘Fortunes of War’ Finally Found Its Moment?
The Ukrainian war has made Manning’s writing more relevant now than at any time since it was written.
Robin Ashenden
· 11 min read
Roya Hakakian and How to Speak About What No One Wants to Hear
The combined threats against Roya Hakakian and Masih Alinejad suggest a broader policy of violence and intimidation on the part of the Islamic Republic and its operatives in the United States.
Paul Berman
· 35 min read
Hofstadter’s Paranoid Style Revisited
Hofstadter argued that McCarthyism was simply the latest iteration of a longstanding American tradition.
Michael J. Totten
· 8 min read