Infinitesimal Jest
/Ian McEwan's latest novel has an ingenious premise--but does it deliver on its promise? Rohan Maitzen reviews Nutshell.
Read MoreA Man Could Stand Up: On Downton Abbey’s Second Season
/Unlike the soap operas with which it is often dismissively aligned, Downton Abbey is defined by change rather than stasis - by its beautifully produced attention to social evolution.
Read MoreRecognizably Human: Larkin and the Sentimental
/Nobody would accuse the mature Larkin of being a greeting card poet, and yet a warm and even vulnerable sentimentality bubbles up in his verse, often when it's least expected.
Read MoreLove at First Glans
/Nicholson Baker's provocative new book is an attempt at mainstream literary pornography, but does it suffer from the same performance anxiety as other novelistic efforts to depict sex?
Read MoreLiterature is Dead, Long Live Literature
/Is the death of literature finally dead? If not, it's been dealt a healthy blow by Gregory Jusdanis' Fiction Agonistes, even it art does have to “justify itself in a way not necessary before.”
Read MoreA Different Sort of Englishness
/John le Carré not only has a new novel -- all his old ones are being inducted into the pantheon of UK Penguin Classics. Has this indefatigable crafter of spy novels transformed into the litterateur in our lifetime?
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