Category Archives: Essays and Opinion

“Girl-woman earthiness,” “sassy kitten,” “a sexual prop used to sell movies and jeans.” Oh, the trouble that comes from men writing about women… more»

When it comes to comfort reading, Will Self doesn’t want to inhabit the world of a spy novel. No, he wants to imagine slipping into a !Kung hunter’s penis sheath and hoisting a hunting spear… more»

Relationships between writers and publishers are fraught, marked by mutual admiration and mutual suspicion. Consider Thomas Bernhard and Siegfried Unseld… more»

Self-plagiarism, false memories, literary kleptomania. What happens, Oliver Sacks wonders, when our most vivid thoughts are not our own?… more»

Fear and loathing, plus self-protection. In Brooklyn in the 1980s, a $65 revolver seemed like a good idea. Butlife with a gun was more stressful than without… more»

Physicists are drawn to elegant theories – “symmetrical,” they’re called – some of which turn out to be true. But their beauty can be blinding… more»

New works on women lack the fire of Betty Friedan. They don’t rage, they fizzle. And Rachel Shteir has had quite enough of them… more»

Michael Dirda is giving up blogging. The furrows of the brain occasionally need to lie fallow. Besides, his book-buying budget calls for the big bucks now… more»

Vocabulary = cognitive ability = economic success, writes E.D. Hirsch. To reduce inequality in America, a good place to start is the language-arts classroom…more»

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained leans on tropes of the bad black man that have long been part of the African-American memory of slavery and its aftermath…more»