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Lost memoir paints revered philosopher John Locke as ‘vain, lazy and pompous’

John Locke is regarded today as one of England’s greatest philosophers, an Enlightenment thinker known as the “father of liberalism”. But a previously unknown memoir attributed to one of his close friends paints a different picture – of a vain, lazy and pompous man who “amused himself with trifling works of wit”, and a plagiarist who “took from others whatever he was able to take”. Read more

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On the Avant-Garde Literary Genius of Donald Barthelme

He never pretended to greatness, and he made fun of those who did. His fallback, his signature, is always humor. For all his avant-gardism, and occasional difficulty, he is a very funny writer, even a jokey one at times. He’s more entertaining to read, and requires less heavylifting, than many of the postmoderns, and he enjoyed more popular success than just about any of them. Read more

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Quentin Tarantino Turns His Most Recent Movie Into a Pulpy Page-Turner

Tarantino isn’t trying to play here what another novelist/screenwriter, Terry Southern, liked to call the Quality Lit Game. He’s not out to impress us with the intricacy of his sentences or the nuance of his psychological insights. He’s here to tell a story, in take-it-or-leave-it Elmore Leonard fashion, and to make room along the way to talk about some of the things he cares about — old movies, male camaraderie, revenge and redemption, music and style. He gets it: Pop culture is what America has instead of mythology. He got bitten early by this notion, and he’s stayed bitten. Read more

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The Vixen by Francine Prose

Prose ingeniously takes on publishing, the fallout of WWII, and McCarthyism in a gloriously astute, skewering, and hilarious bildungsroman. One of this bravura performance’s many piquant delights is Prose’s clever use of Simon’s fluency in ancient sagas as he struggles to comprehend just how malignant the scheme he’s bogged down in truly is. Mordant, incisive, and tenderhearted, Prose presents an intricately realized tale of a treacherous, democracy-threatening time of lies, demagoguery, and prejudice that is as wildly exhilarating as the Cyclone, Simon’s beloved Coney Island roller coaster. Read more

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Oprah Winfrey picks Emancipation-era novel ‘The Sweetness of Water’ for book club

Critics in the New York Times, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus and elsewhere have praised the book. “Harris’ first novel is an aching chronicle of loss, cruelty, and love in the wake of community devastation,” said Booklist. Novelist Richard Russo, the author of “Marriage Story: An American Memoir,” said, “What a gifted, assured writer Nathan Harris is … better than any debut novel has a right to be.” Read more

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Ali Smith wins Orwell prize for novel taking in Covid-19 and Brexit

The Scottish author came up with her project to write four political novels in real time back in 2015, starting with Autumn. Smith began writing Summer, the final book in her Seasonal Quartet, in January 2020 and it was published in August. The novel includes references to Covid-19, Australian wildfires, Brexit and the murder of George Floyd. Read more

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