interview with Scott Adams
(6/3/96)
The Salon Interview: Jay McInerny. By Dwight Garner
Bright lights, bad reviews -- Jay McInerny on the aftermath of literary stardom
(5/27/96)
The Salon Interview: Martin Cruz Smith By Sophie Majeski
The author of "Gorky Park" found the iconoclastic, pants-wearing "pit girls" of North England's coal mines an irresistible subject for his new historical novel, "Rose."
(5/20/96)
The Salon Interview: Julian Barnes By Carl Swanson
The author of "Flaubert's Parrot" and the new story collection "Cross Channel" on fact-fetishists, mad cows, "old fartery" and literary dish.
(5/13/96)
The Salon Interview: Louise Erdrich By Robert Spillman
The novelist talks about her new "Tales of Burning Love," her Native American roots, and how being a mother has made her a more emotionally engaged writer.
(5/6/96)
Glowing in the Ashes: A Talk with Graham Swift By Scott Rosenberg
"Waterland's" widely praised author rejects pop-culture ephemera in favor of the fundamentals. His new "Last Orders" follows a quartet of old friends on a funeral pilgrimage that brings them flashes of insight.
(5/6/96)
Poetry for the Rest of Us By Laura Miller
Meet nine poets who will get under your skin
(4/29/96)
"A Scruffy Fighting Place" By Richard Covington
Seamus Heaney on the art of poetry
(4/29/96)
Twilight of the Panther By Arthur Allen
A black militant's exile in Castro's Cuba
(4/6/96)
"Champagne for Everyone!" By Scott Rosenberg
An interview with "Rumpole" creator John Mortimer
(4/6/96)
Tome Deaf By Gary Kamiya
The New York Public Library's "Books of the Century" is a rigged literary parlor game -- but it's still fun to play.
(4/6/96)
Wearing Thin By Stephanie Zacharek
The feminist theories about brainwashed, anorexic women expounded in "Am I Thin Enough Yet?" don't stand up to scrutiny.
(4/6/96)
The Salon Interview: Nicholson Baker By Laura Miller
The author of "Vox" and "The Fermata" talks about the public trials of writing about sex and the private joy of writing on a rubber spatula
(3/23/96)
Stars for a Day By Richard Covington
American writers like Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff and Jayne Anne Phillips were given the superstar treatment at the 16th Paris Book Fair
(3/23/96)
The Heartbeat of Conscience By Gary Kamiya
The short stories of Andre Dubus trace the excruciating truths of married life in the familiar cadences of everyday speech
(3/23/96)
How the West was fleeced By Cheryll Aimee Barron
By spoon-feeding a spiritually starved America with wisdom pellets from the East, Deepak Chopra has turned himself into a one-man publishing empire
(3/9/96)
The man who saved the world By David Talbot
Hoist a glass of green beer to St. Patrick, the man author Thomas Cahill says is responsible for preserving Western civilization
(3/9/96)
The Salon Interview: David Foster Wallace By Laura Miller
The author of the mammoth, erudite, maddening novel "Infinite Jest" talks about life in America on the verge of the millennium, Kant, tennis and why his book is 1,079 pages long
(3/9/96)
The Unsquarest Person Around By James Marcus
Albert Murray's defiance of separatism and celebration of the "Omni-American" inspired a generation of freethinking black intellectuals.
(3/9/96)
Carolyn Chute's Wicked Good Militia By Dwight Garner
The author of "The Beans of Egypt, Maine" is leading an army of grave, silent woodsmen in a backwoods campaign against corporate greed
(2/24/96)
The Salon Interview: John Updike
The last great American man of letters talks about the movies, presidential adultery and the literary life, past and present
(2/24/96)
"Backward and Upward: The New Conservative Writing" By Gary Kamiya
David Brooks' anthology of right-wing writers fails to dispel conservatism's serious fun problem
(2/24/96)
Al Franken Interview. By Mark Schapiro
Stuart Smalley's creator reminds Rush Limbaugh -- whom he loves -- that every time you point a finger at someone else, three fingers are pointing back at you
(2/10/96)
Interview with a Grossologist By Leslie Crawford
Most people, if continually exposed to such substances as ear wax, diarrhea and projectile vomit, produce some of their own. Sylvia Branzei wrote a book
(2/10/96)
"The Love Affair as a Work of Art" By Laura Miller
The love affairs examined in Dan Hofstadter's book end up looking less like masterpieces and more like histrionic poses by Gallic hams
(2/10/96)
"Manhood in America: A Cultural History" By Dwight Garner
Sensitive New Age Academic Guy Michael Kimmel wants to point the way beyond Iron John. Instead, he offers up a bland rehash of middlebrow opinion and just plain bad writing
(2/10/96)
Non-Disclosure. By Andrew Ross
The pundits are falling all over themselves praising "Primary Colors," the anonymous novel about the 1992 Clinton campaign -- ignoring the cowardice of the book and its author
(2/10/96)
The Salon Interview: Salman Rushdie
The great novelist talks about his stunning new book, "The Moor's Last Sigh," the stories that hold families together and the art of writing under sentence of death
(1/27/96)
Granta's List. By Dwight Garner
America's young novelists are holding their breaths over an honor one judge calls "a really stupid idea."
(1/27/96)
Books.The Waning of the Cultured Capitalist. By Cheryll Aimée Barron
The intellects of yesterday's captains of industry put modern managers to shame. (1/27/96) Plus: Inside the book bags of Silicon Valley executives
Blood Ties. By Laura Miller
Behind today's feverish obsession with vampires lurks the desire to create the cool family we never had.
(1/13/96)
The Salon Interview: Jamaica Kincaid
The Antiguan author of the new novel "Autobiography of My Mother," who went from being a penniless au pair to a staff writer for The New Yorker, recently resigned in disgust at Tina Brown's editorship. She speaks frankly about Brown and her own mother, who "should not have had children."
(1/13/96)
Richard North Patterson Interview By Joan Smith
Best-selling mystery writer honed his craft by learning how to hold the interest of the toughest audiences in the world: judges and juries
(12/30/95)
Bringing the Media Gods Down to Earth. By Jon Katz
Will the "public journalism" movement make the press more responsible -- or even more arrogant?
(12/30/95)
Children Want the Witch to Die. By Polly Shulman
Kids don't just want to have fun. They want to know right from wrong, a mission performed by children's books, from 19th century morality tales to today's psychological primers
(12/16/95)
Plus: The Children's Canon. Authors and illustrators William Steig, Katherine Paterson, Jerry Pinkney, William Joyce and Jon Scieszka pick the greatest kids' books of all time. (12/16/95)
Birth of a Mystery. By Gary Kamiya
Jesus of Nazareth remains the most famous unknown man in history. A conversation with biographer A. N. Wilson.
(12/16/95)
New Writers of the Celtic Wave. By Aingeal Conneely
Ireland is a world literary capital again, and novelist/Irish Times literary critic Mary Morrissy spotlights the writers who are making it happen
(12/16/95)
"The Ravenous Muse" By Dwight Garneris stuffed with literary offerings to the gods of gluttony
(12/16/95)
Austenmania. By Laura Miller
Why, after years of neglect, Hollywood is scrambling to film Jane Austen's novels
(12/2/95)
Gentleman's Agreement. By Richard Regen
Walter Mosley, America's premier black mystery novelist, charges the publishing industry with "passive racism."
(12/2/95)
Heart of Darkness. By Gary Kamiya
Anthropologist Philippe Bourgois went deeper into America's crack culture than anyone before. Too deep
(12/2/95)
The Road Ahead. By Scott Rosenberg
Will Bill Gates get run over on the information highway?
(12/2/95)
Freudian Flame Wars. By Laura Miller
The holy war between Frederick Crews and outraged Freudians heats up
(12/2/95)
The Salon Interview: Amy Tan
The author talks about the ghosts that inhabit her latest novel, "The Hundred Secret Senses," and her struggles with her emotional demons.
Plus: Amy Tan's Book Bag
(11/20/95)
My Inspiration: Vladimir Nabokov. By Mary Gaitskill
A tribute to "the sorcerer of cruelty."
(11/20/95)