Books
A Matter of Conscience
By Tim MarchmanIt is impossible to learn overnight what one has spent a lifetime in ignorance of, and so it was perhaps not shocking to see demonstrators at a recent protest against the military action in Afghanistan hoisting placards reading U.S. OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST, apparently unaware that Afghanistan is in fact in Central Asia.
A Story for Big Girls
By Laura BradfordSigrid Nunez, For Rouenna (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, November 2001), $22 hardcover. For Rouenna, Sigrid Nunez’s fourth novel, raises the question of whether a writer should ever tell a story “for” someone else, either at their wish or on their behalf.
In Conversation with D. Nurkse
By Margot FarringtonD. Nurkse’s most recent book of poetry is The Rules of Paradise (Four Way Books, 2001). His previous books include Leaving Xaia, Voices Over Water, Staggered Lights, Shadow Wars, and Isolation in Action.
Newfield’s New York
By Theodore HammJack Newfield, Somebody’s Gotta Tell It! The Upbeat Memoir of a Working-Class Journalist (St. Martin’s Press, April 2002) $30 hardcover.
The Art of Booklyn
By Cricket HeinzeRiding to Greenpoint on the G train, I confess, I was expecting something different. Aside from knowing Booklyn’s address and the fact that it was some sort of artist’s co-op that made books, I was aware that its members embraced performance art as well as artist bookmaking.
The Race of Architecture
By Tia BlassingameSince their arrival in the sixteenth century, Africans and Americans of African descent have been involved in American design, first as free and slave builders, carpenters, blacksmiths and later as architects.
There’s Still Hope for Utopia
By Jim FeastI often wonder what you would see if you turned time inside out. That is, while the pummeling of exterior events is easy to study, what is less visible but more worth wondering about is how people relate emotionally and intellectually to historical surges.
With Us, Without Us: In Memoriam W.G. Sebald
By Alan LockwoodW.G. Sebald, the German writer whose four elegant, memory-drenched books have gained increasing acclaim over the past decade, dies near his English home in December.
