Copyright 2010 The New York Sun Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:25:35 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Books :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/books admin@nysun.net (Seth Lipsky) webmaster@nysun.com en-us SAUL ROSENBERG http://www.nysun.com/arts/recollecting-the-reporter-who-inspired-on/87032/ Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:11:34 EST In May 1948, in a scene that might have come from a gangster movie, a man leapt out of a sedan and fired seven shots at a stevedore named Tom Collentine, three into his prostrate body. As had become routine in previous decades, most New York papers gave decent play to this waterfront murder and moved on. By contrast, The New York Sun sent its star reporter, Malcolm “Mike” Johnson, to do what neither papers, politicians nor policemen had been willing to do before: seek the connections among the... SAUL ROSENBERG http://www.nysun.com/arts/american-dominance-roosevelt-eisenhower/87013/ Sun, 27 Jun 2010 13:52:30 EST Delivering a magisterial account of Franklin Roosevelt’s and Dwight Eisenhower’s roles in World War II, situated within their separate lives and presidencies, may seem an outright impossibility in the space of 100 pages. Yet it is what Philip Terzian has done in Architects of Power: Roosevelt, Eisenhower, and the American Century. This brief volume will probably do more to correct current misperceptions than anything since Roosevelt became simply the polio victim who launched the New Deal, and... SAUL ROSENBERG http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-towering-spiritual-leader-finds-his-biographers/87006/ Mon, 21 Jun 2010 09:28:30 EST Hasidism emerged in 18th century Eastern Europe as a route to first-class citizenship within a Judaism that had developed a severe hierarchy of legalistic intellectualism. Now, the unlettered Jew could express genuine religious feeling through joy, chant, and the observance of simple commandments. Hasidism has many strands, but Chabad Lubavitch, named for Lyubavichi, the Russian town where it originated, is the most famous (ironically, as it is the most intellectual of Hasidic philosophies)... SAUL ROSENBERG http://www.nysun.com/arts/greece-in-the-shadow-of-the-nazis/86992/ Tue, 8 Jun 2010 09:40:19 EST In the most common type of thriller – conservatively, 99 examples out of 100 – a protagonist pieces together puzzling events until the dastardly plans of an antagonist are discovered – and there ensues a game of cat and mouse, or a race against time, so that the good guy(s) can defuse the bomb, or stop the speeding bus, or whatever, five seconds before the world explodes. Sometimes, the period of puzzlement is dispensed with, as in Ethan Hunt’s missions impossible, whether announced by... SAUL ROSENBERG http://www.nysun.com/arts/half-way-there/86977/ Wed, 26 May 2010 14:49:00 EST Christopher Hitchens is prolific indeed. Now, after books on a dozen subjects from Cyprus to Jefferson, Paine, and, most recently, the general badness of religion, he turns his attention inwards in Hitch-22, named for the paradoxical style of Catch-22. Hitch-22’s chief paradox is that of simultaneously maintaining against militant Islamic absolutists and Western relativists that “there is no totalitarian solution while also insisting that, yes, we on our side also have unalterable convictions... BRENDAN BERNHARD http://www.nysun.com/arts/trading-places-famous-amos-runs-into-hitch-22/86969/ Fri, 21 May 2010 16:30:49 EST Given the woeful sales for “serious fiction,” the average literary novelist would probably be delighted to receive the critical thrashing that was recently unleashed upon Martin Amis and his new novel, “The Pregnant Widow” (Knopf, 384 pp.), by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times -- if only as proof of an otherwise obscure existence. But neither by birth (he is the son of Kingsley Amis) nor by talent can Mr. Amis possibly be construed as an average novelist. However, the world in which Mr... Saul Rosenberg http://www.nysun.com/arts/probity-not-policy/86928/ Mon, 26 Apr 2010 15:42:31 EST American public anger at its financial system has perhaps not run higher in almost a century. Banks are booking record profits while the American consumer on the other end of what was a shared crisis just a year go continues to struggle. Curiously, at about the same time 1st quarter results came out, two volumes at once very different and very much to the point were reissued to little notice on the same day by General Books, a club that republishes classics: Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations”... CHRISTOPHER LANE http://www.nysun.com/arts/all-alone-two-new-books-on-loneliness/86807/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST "We're all in this alone," the comedian Lily Tomlin once quipped, in a startling home truth. Loneliness is the dirty little secret of our outgoing "people-person" culture. It's not someone else's problem, but one that afflicts almost 20% of Americans — roughly 60 million people. Americans were once regarded as the most gregarious people on earth. No longer. They now report having fewer friends and confidants than ever before. Nearly 30 million of them live alone. And a recent study, drawing on... DAN AVERY http://www.nysun.com/arts/jonathan-ames-gets-real-in-a-graphic-novel/86866/ Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:46:07 EST For Jonathan Ames, writing himself into his own work is standard procedure. The Brooklyn author has recounted his neuroses and sexual misadventures in nonfiction essays, and peppered novels, such as "Wake Up, Sir!" and "The Extra Man," with characters that share his self-destructive tendencies and fascination with transsexuals. With "The Alcoholic," his new graphic novel published by DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, Mr. Ames has finally given a form to his literary avatar. Told mostly through... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/drowning-in-the-desert-miriam-toewss-the-flying/86743/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST There's something inherently appealing about a novel that makes Deborah Solomon, the New York Times Magazine Q&A guru, the crush object of a 15-year-old Canadian boy. "What do you like so much about Deborah Solomon?" Logan Troutman's cool, 28-year-old aunt, Hattie, asks him, having spied the plea, "Deborah Solomon, be my girlfriend," written in the coating of dust on the family TV. "The older woman thing?" Hattie guesses. That isn't it, turns out. "She's solid," Logan says after some prodding... RICHARD TOFEL http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-new-face-of-philanthropy/86649/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Beginning with Warren Buffett's multibillion-dollar gift to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006 and Bill Gates's decision to turn his primary attention to giving all of that money away, philanthropy has been a hot topic in business circles. The promise has been that philanthropy would benefit from the overdue application of bu siness methods, and would therefore get faster, tougher, smarter. The Gates Foundation — the largest philanthropy not only today, but ever — is at the center of... ALBERTO MANGUEL http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-universe-of-books-borgess-library-of-babel/86435/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST n 1939, employed in a small municipal library of Buenos Aires where the oafishness of his colleagues made him weep with daily frustration, the 40-year-old (and still largely unknown) Jorge Luis Borges collected a few of the reading notes he had made on the streetcar to and from work, and pieced together a short text which, under the title "The Total Library," he sent to the magazine Sur, where it appeared in the August issue. The essay, which links the names of Democritus, Lewis Carroll... IAN KERSHAW http://www.nysun.com/arts/timothy-rybacks-hitlers-private-library/86436/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Adolf Hitler's reading habits were singular indeed. In the first volume of "Mein Kampf," written in 1924, Hitler explicitly stated that "reading is no end in itself, but a means to an end." He explained what this meant: A man who possesses the art of correct reading will, in studying any book, magazine, or pamphlet, instinctively and immediately perceive everything which in his opinion is worth permanently remembering, either because it is suited to his purpose or generally worth knowing. Once... STEVEN NADLER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-great-rambam-joel-kramers-maimonides/86437/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It is hard to do a philosopher's life. For starters, sources tend to be rather meager: Philosophers generally tend not to live an active, engaged public existence (Socrates, Sartre, and Russell notwithstanding), and they seldom leave behind a rich personal correspondence out of which an inner life can be reconstructed. Contemporary philosophers, themselves perhaps most qualified to write about other thinkers, do not often write biographies, regarding the pursuit as a kind of disreputable... VICTOR DAVIS HANSON http://www.nysun.com/arts/why-we-fight-martin-van-crevelds-the-culture/86443/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Martin van Creveld is one of the world's most prolific military historians, and has written in serial fashion about the state of present-day military conflict in light of the past. His books, most of whose names make use of the word "war," have appeared steadily every few years — "Supplying War" (1977); "Command in War" (1985); "Technology and War" (1989); "The Transformation of War" (1991); "The Art of War" (2000); "Men, Women and War" (2001), and "The Changing Face of War" (2006). Mr... SIMON KITSON http://www.nysun.com/arts/agnes-humberts-wartime-diary-resistance/86444/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Mystery continues to surround Agnès Humbert's diary. The subject matter is clear enough: It describes the struggle of a French Resistance heroine against Nazi oppression. But many questions remain unanswered. Why one of the founders of a Resistance movement felt it judicious to commit to paper detailed daily accounts of her activity is baffling. Where did she store her journal to prevent its secrets falling into the hands of the Gestapo when she was arrested? The exact circumstances of the... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-novel-as-idyll-julian-ayestas-helena-or/86442/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Books are often about the same things: the beach, a fire, a memory of sound and light. "The cherry jam shone bright red amongst the black and yellow wasps, and the wind stirred the branches of the oak trees, and spots of sunlight raced over the moss." This sentence, written by Julián Ayesta (1919-96), a Spanish diplomat and sometime author, could stand in for any number of literary memories. There are some books that we talk about with each other. What did Isabella Archer have in mind, at the... ADAM KIRSCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-peculiar-association-thomas-jefferson-and-sally/86445/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In 1795 Thomas Jefferson was in the middle of a four-year vacation from public office. Having stepped down as secretary of state at the end of George Washington's first term, and not yet elected as John Adams's vice president, Jefferson was free to spend his time doing what he always claimed to love best: building and running his estate at Monticello. At the beginning of that year he wrote to his daughter Martha to discuss some business that her husband, Thomas Randolph, was attending to: the... ERIC ORMSBY http://www.nysun.com/arts/book-burning-and-other-bibliocausts/86438/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The clay tablets of the Babylonians seem clumsy and strangely vulnerable. They weren't gathered in books or protected by bindings; they crumbled easily. And yet, they had one great advantage over all our media, from parchment to CDs: When baked by the sun or fired in kilns, clay tablets become virtually indestructible. Neither fire nor water nor hungry worms can wreck them. If they break, the shards can be pieced together again. As a result, thousands of ancient records incised in clay, from... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominick-dunne-returns-to-oj-trial/86421/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Celebrity crime writer Dominick Dunne was greeted by O.J. Simpson as he returned to a Las Vegas courtroom Tuesday to cover the former football star's armed robbery-kidnapping trial. "Mr. Dunne, nice to see you back," Mr. Simpson said as the 82-year-old Mr. Dunne and his son, Griffin Dunne, arrived in the courthouse hallway minutes before testimony resumed. Mr. Dunne shook Mr. Simpson's hand before turning to accept well wishes from the bailiff in the courtroom, Arthur Sewell. The Vanity Fair... OTTO PENZLER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-crime-scene-a-great-pair/86439/ Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Hieronymus "Harry" Bosch has become one of the great figures in contemporary American mystery fiction, and this ethical, tough-but-softhearted Los Angeles policeman has brought enormous, well-deserved success to his creator, Michael Connelly. Driven to protect the good people of his city and to put away the bad guys, Bosch is haunted by every case he can't solve and by every killer or rapist he can't catch. He's the cop we would want on the case if something bad happened to someone we love... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/dominick-dunne-stricken-at-simpson-trial/86345/ Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Celebrity crime writer Dominick Dunne has been taken to a Las Vegas hospital after he says he was stricken by pain while watching testimony in the O.J. Simpson armed robbery-kidnapping trial. The 82-year-old Mr. Dunne said by telephone Monday that he was being checked by doctors. He says he expects to be released from the hospital later in the day. Says Mr. Dunne: "Tell them not to worry. I'm fine. They're going to check me out and I'll go back to the hotel and watch the trial there today." The... MARTHA MERCER http://www.nysun.com/arts/swedish-intrigue-on-an-isle-the-girl-with/86282/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A Swedish mystery whose arrival was heralded with glowing reviews, crime fiction awards, and blockbuster sales at home, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (Knopf, 480 pages, $24.95) cannot help but be something of a letdown to hard-core fans of the genre, even as its unorthodox nature may draw in readers not traditionally gripped by the strictures of a mystery plot. Faithful readers of the Swedish mystery mastermind Henning Mankell may be reminded of the first time they cracked open an Åke... Staff Reporter of the Sun http://www.nysun.com/arts/real-stories-of-anorexia-challenge-stereotypes/86240/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Besides covering New York's cultural institutions, the New York Sun's arts reporter, Kate Taylor, has written about a no less important, though perhaps more somber, subject: eating disorders. Anchor Books has just published an anthology that she edited, "Going Hungry: Writers on Desire, Self-Denial, and Overcoming Anorexia." In addition to Ms. Taylor's introductory essay, "Going Hungry" includes essays by 18 writers, including Jennifer Egan, Joyce Maynard, Louise Glück, and Francine du Plessix... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/garcia-lorca-family-assents-to-opening-of-mass/86162/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Federico García Lorca's family won't oppose the opening of a mass grave where his body is believed to have been dumped after Franco supporters allegedly executed the poet and playwright at the outbreak of Spain's Civil War, a leading daily said Thursday. "We will not oppose it," Laura García Lorca, the poet's niece, was quoted as saying by El País. "Although we would prefer it weren't done, we respect the wishes of the other parties involved." No one at the Federico García Lorca Foundation was... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/six-finalists-named-for-goldman-sachs-book-prize/86166/ Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Mohamed El-Erian's "When Markets Collide," Misha Glenny's "McMafia," and Alice Schroeder's new biography of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, "The Snowball," are among the finalists tapped for the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. Worth $54,000 to the winner, the prize was created by Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the most profitable American securities firm, and the Financial Times to highlight books that provide "the most compelling and enjoyable insights into... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-bushnell-books-to-star-teen-carrie-bradshaw/86060/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST "Sex and the City" author Candace Bushnell is writing a pair of teen novels, "The Carrie Diaries," that "takes readers back to Carrie Bradshaw's formative years in high school, giving an inside look at Carrie's friendships, romances, and how she realized her dream of becoming a writer," HarperCollins announced Wednesday. The first book will come out in 2010. Ms. Bushnell, in a statement issued by her publisher, said, "Carrie in high school did not follow the crowd — she led it. It was there... ADAM KIRSCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/against-oblivion-the-terezin-album-of-marianka/86004/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST When Hannah Arendt wrote "The Origins of Totalitarianism" in the years just after the Holocaust, she struggled to explain what made the Nazi genocide so unprecedentedly evil. What separated this atrocity from all previous atrocities, she decided, was not the number of victims. It was, rather, the new institution of the concentration camp, which Arendt described as the supreme expression of the monstrous ambition of totalitarianism: to eradicate the individual human being. "The murder of the... DENIS DONOGHUE http://www.nysun.com/arts/hiding-behind-the-spines-anonymity-by-john-mullan/86001/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Do you recall "Primary Colors," a "novel of politics" published in January 1996 and ascribed to Anonymous? The book was, in effect but not in name, a lurid depiction of the domestic lives of Bill and Hillary Clinton during the campaign for the presidency in 1992, and the identity of Anonymous became a hot issue for several months. The likeliest candidate, Joe Klein, denied to Dan Rather on CBS that he was the author. On July 17, he was outed by a handwriting analyst. That same day, he confessed... TODD M. ENDELMAN http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-making-of-benjamin-disraeli-adam-kirschs-new/86002/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Benjamin Disraeli's Jewishness has been a problem for his biographers, especially his English biographers. Robert Blake's classic study (1966) — still the hallmark account of Disraeli's political career — makes little of his boastful celebrations, on the floor of the House of Commons and in the pages of his novels, of the Jews and their contributions to civilization. For Blake and other English historians, Disraeli's over-the-top embrace of his Jewishness is a distraction, better sidelined than... CHRISTINA HOFF SOMMERS http://www.nysun.com/arts/reconsiderations-betty-friedans-the-feminine/86003/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST "Groundbreaking." "A landmark." "A classic." Those are the words now commonly used to describe Betty Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique," first published in 1963. Friedan "pulled the trigger on history," wrote futurist Alvin Toffler; feminist admirers refer to it as "The Book." "The Feminine Mystique" sold more than 2 million copies when it came out, and remains a staple in women's studies classes today. But after nearly half a century, does it live up to its reputation? Rereading it, I find it... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/boy-wonder-james-kelmans-new-novel/85992/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Sometimes great writing does not make a great novel. Among the books notably missed on this year's just-announced Booker Prize short list is "Kieron Smith, boy" (Harcourt, 432 pages, $26) by James Kelman, who won the Booker in 1994 for "How late it was, how late." Published earlier this year in England, the new book, a long narrative told in the voice of a young boy, is one of Mr. Kelman's most sustained, impressive efforts — and yet the Booker committee's exclusion of it is no crime. Mr... JAMES PANERO http://www.nysun.com/arts/in-search-of-watteau-jed-perls-antoines-alphabet/85993/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Who is your favorite painter? Jed Perl, the art critic for the New Republic, responds: "Whenever I'm asked to name my favorite painter I reply, without a moment's hesitation: 'Watteau.'" Come again? Watteau? A confection of the ancien regime, Jean-Antoine Watteau was born in 1684 and lived a mere 36 years, dying in 1721, the master of the fête gallant and the portraitist of the commedia dell'arte. It's not the answer you might expect to come out of a tough-minded critic on the contemporary... ERIC ORMSBY http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-laureate-of-hard-luck-the-collected-lyric/86005/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In its great century, Portugal commanded an empire extending from Brazil to India. Vasco da Gama reached the coast of India in 1498, and in 1500 Pedro Cabral first sighted Brazil. But the imperial glory was short-lived. In 1580, Philip II of Spain invaded and added Portugal to his kingdom, where it remained unhappily for another 60 years. But Portugal lost more than its independence in that year. For in 1580, Luís de Camões, later acclaimed as the national poet, died in Lisbon and was cast... OTTO PENZLER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-crime-scene-russian-front/86008/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Stuart Kaminsky was not named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America because of a single book or even a single series character. He was deservedly given the organization's highest honor for maintaining a consistently high level of professional crime fiction throughout a career that has spanned more than three decades. After a gap of seven years, Inspector Porfiry Petrovich Rostnikov is back in his 15th book, "People Who Walk in Darkness" (Forge, 287 pages, $23.95), and it is a good... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/striding-forward-fall-fiction/85961/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In fiction, the fall will be a season not of bright debuts or treacherous sophomore efforts, but of crucial mid-career landmarks. Of course, John Updike will have a new novel, and Philip Roth will publish what might be his best novel in years, "Indignation." And Toni Morrison will publish her slimmest novel yet, "A Mercy," set in the 1680s. But the real interest will be novelists who are only now peaking, who have established reputations but who are publishing their most ambitious work right... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-campaign-season-fall-nonfiction/85971/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The November election will dominate this fall's nonfiction season, with entries by pollsters and Web loggers, as well as more seasoned authors, analyzing every possible American future. The books we look forward to take a longer view, examining the past as much as the future. "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency" might once have been received as an intervention in current affairs, but Pulitzer Prize winner Barton Gellman appears to have written a book of history, more concerned with Vice... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/agatha-christie-tapes-discovered/85866/ Tue, 16 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Mystery writer Agatha Christie can be heard musing about the origins of Jane Marple, one of her best-loved heroines, on recently discovered recordings, her grandson said Monday. Mathew Prichard said he found a host of old tapes when cleaning out his grandmother's house several years ago, but could not play them until he fixed the obsolete machine on which they were recorded. "Not being a technical person I didn't realize how modern technology can resurrect [the tapes]," Mr. Prichard told the... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/her-so-called-life-sarah-shun-lien-bynums-ms/85786/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The black-and-white subway ads for the NYC Teaching Fellows program were, if you recall, heavy-handed, even a little bit cruel. Also, frankly, not as well punctuated as they might have been. "You remember your first grade teacher's name. Who will remember yours?" they asked, taunting vulnerable commuters with the anonymous worthlessness of their pursuits. Even so, there was a kind of genius to them, because don't most of us remember our earliest teachers? Not just first grade, but all the way... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/what-david-foster-wallace-left-behind/85801/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Picking up a copy of "Infinite Jest" by David Foster Wallace — who died in an apparent suicide on Friday — the reader sees a face on the dust jacket cover too strange to be cool. Slanting his head to the side, as people do when they're writing longhand, Wallace wore a white turtleneck and a white do-rag that smashed his long, elegant bangs down over an unshaven face that was tender, serious, and slightly puffy. The back of a baggy padded armchair was visible, out of focus, behind him. In... NICHOLAS WAPSHOTT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-few-of-the-presidents-men-woodwards-the-war/85594/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In "The War Within" (Simon & Schuster, 487 pages, $32), the fourth volume of Bob Woodward's war quartet, he makes a number of key observations about the way President Bush has handled the Iraq surge. Mr. Woodward has discovered that, while in public, the president and his administration maintained a confident outlook about the prospect of victory evan as, behind the scenes, over time they became concerned at the lack of progress in pacifying the warring factions and the Al Qaeda-inspired forces... MICHAEL WOOD http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-naked-and-the-dead-julian-barness-nothing/85496/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The French critic Roland Barthes once said that middle age begins, not at any particular chronological point in life, but exactly when, early or late, we begin to feel we are going to die — as distinct from abstractly knowing that fact. "This is a not a natural feeling," Barthes continued. "The natural one is to believe oneself immortal." Many of us can attest indeed to the naturalness of this feeling — and we do have Freud on our side, who asserted that "it is impossible to imagine our own... ADAM KIRSCH http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-god-that-failed-left-in-dark-times-by-bernard/85499/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST It is now approaching 20 years since the left — the classic, revolutionary, Marx- and Lenin-inspired left — received its death blow. Since 1989, not even those who look back lovingly at 1917, the year of the Bolshevik Revolution, and 1871, the year of the Paris Commune, have really believed that they would see such utopian experiments repeated. This was an especially debilitating blow to the Marxist tradition, whose major premise was that revolution is not simply desirable, but inevitable: that... RUTH FRANKLIN http://www.nysun.com/arts/back-to-school-philip-roths-indignation/85500/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST What is it with Jews and sex? While the literature of eros has always been multicultural — from the "Kama Sutra" to "The Decameron," Ovid's "Art of Love" to "The Story of O" — it is hard to think of another culture as consistently, persistently obsessed with the subject as Jewish America, circa 1950-2000. Just take a look at a provocative little anthology of "Jewish writers on sex" that appeared a few years ago under the pitch-perfect title "Neurotica." The table of contents reads like the... ERIC ORMSBY http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-world-inside-my-head-larry-withams-proof/85492/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST One day in 1894, when he was only 22 and in his final year at Cambridge, Bertrand Russell went out to buy tobacco and had a surprising flash of insight. It was one of those privileged moments that comes to philosophers and mathematicians, especially when they are young. Strolling along Trinity Lane, he tossed his packet of tobacco high into the air and exclaimed, "Great Scott! The ontological argument is sound." Even in turn-of-the-century Cambridge, a place with more than its share of dotty... Bloomberg News http://www.nysun.com/arts/debut-authors-highlight-booker-short-list/85485/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Salman Rushdie's "The Enchantress of Florence" failed to make the final round in the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, as the judges chose to short-list six lesser-known authors, including two debut novelists, for Britain's most prestigious literary award. The finalists for the prize, worth $88,000, come from India, Britain, Australia, and Ireland. They range from Sebastian Barry's "The Secret Scripture" (Faber and Faber), a study of an Irish life blighted by politics, religion, and misogyny, to... OTTO PENZLER http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-crime-scene-mysterious-miscellany/85511/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST While recent motion-picture successes seem to be dominated by superheroes such as Batman, James Bond, Iron Man, Indiana Jones, Jason Bourne, and Hellboy, there appears to be a great deal of energy left in the film life of the man who was described by his closest friend as "the best and wisest man whom I have ever known," which indicates that Sherlock Holmes is also a superhero, though of a slightly different sort. Warner Bros. is scheduled to start filming "Sherlock Holmes" later this year... BENJAMIN LYTAL http://www.nysun.com/arts/mourning-and-melancholia-pierre-michons-small/85512/ Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST From an Anglo-American viewpoint, where translations from France are predominated first by Michel Houellebecq, anti-saint, and second by a nimbus of metaphysical detective novels, Pierre Michon at first appears to be a delicious throwback, writing with luxurious self-confidence and unembarrassed depth. "Let us explore a genesis for my pretensions," he begins in his critically acclaimed first novel, now translated by Jody Gladding and Elizabeth Deshays as "Small Lives" (Archipelago Press, 214... Associated Press http://www.nysun.com/arts/judge-rules-for-rowling-against-potter/85387/ Tue, 9 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST A judge ruled Monday in favor of "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling in her copyright infringement lawsuit against a fan and Web site operator who was set to publish a "Potter" encyclopedia. U.S. District Judge Robert Patterson said Ms. Rowling had proven that Steven Vander Ark's "Harry Potter Lexicon" would cause her irreparable harm as a writer. He permanently blocked publication of the reference guide and awarded Ms. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. $6,750 in statutory damages. Ms... LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES http://www.nysun.com/arts/navel-gazing-emily-perkinss-novel-about-my-wife/85311/ Mon, 8 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST We don't see each other clearly, no matter how close we get, no matter how seemingly intimate we are. Sometimes, in the most egregious cases, that's because we're standing in our own way. Even hindsight is little help to Tom Stone, the 40-something Londoner who unspools the narrative of Emily Perkins's poignant, unsettling, and darkly funny "Novel About My Wife" (Bloomsbury USA, 271 pages, $14.99). Ostensibly, the story he tells is about his wife, Ann, who's died, though we don't know how. "If...