The Unending Pleasures of Jenny DiskiThe worst thing you can say about personal essayists is that they lack a personality. It’s the opposite with Diski.
How Jann Wenner Built His Boomer EmpireWenner said he started Rolling Stone to meet John Lennon; just as much, he wanted to be Lennon. He came as close as any magazine editor could.
Listening to John AshberyHis death marks a real historical threshold, the passing away of the generation of writers who turned modernism into a tradition.
Book Review: Alexandra Kleeman’s IntimationsShe has a gothic imagination and a wit keen to the absurdities of American culture — particularly its dietary vices and media horror shows.
Is It Story That Makes Us Read?Plots: the who, what, and where — but maybe not why — of literature. Plus, the history of plot and literature’s very worst endings.