In a piece for Oxford American, Mark Edmundson has an important message for incoming college freshpersons.
“Who Are You and What Are You Doing Here?”
President Obama, Literary Critic
“Remember how I said there’s a certain kind of conservatism which I respect more than bourgeois liberalism—T. S. Eliot is of this type.” President Obama wrote these words as a twenty-two-year-old student, but Edward Mendelson argues that Obama’s words as a literary critic reveal his tendencies as a politician. Check out our own Michael Bourne’s review of Barack Obama: The Story by David Maraniss, where Obama’s letter was originally published.
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Books for Problematic Times
Read and submit a “book for problematic times,” a blogger’s response to Newsweek’s uninspired 50 Books for Our Times.
Uber Nichts
George Bernard Shaw had a strange relationship with Nietzsche. Alternately envious and dismissive of the German philosopher, Shaw once said he wanted to be an intellectual in Nietzsche’s mold, though he also felt Nietzsche’s thinking was addled and self-absorbed. In an essay for The New Statesman, Michael Holroyd tries to make sense of Shaw’s views.
Sex and the City Prequel
For those who just can’t get enough of Carrie Bradshaw, Candace Bushnell‘s latest: The Carrie Diaries. And some coverage of the book at USA Today.
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The Many-Layered Characters of Marlon James
Marlon James discusses Moon Witch, Spider King, the second book in his medieval African fantasy trilogy, which features a cast of unforgettable characters.
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