Top of the Stack
Shoplift Lit: You Are What You Steal
Ever wonder which books get stolen most from bookstores? Some will surprise you.
The Front Page
“Portnoy’s Complaint” by Philip Roth Looms as a Wild Blue Shocker and the American Novel of the Sixties
Philip Roth on the verge of celebrity.
The Notorious Libby Holman
Libby Holman, the consummate torch singer, never understood why almost every man she touched died violently. She had the opposite of the Midas touch, but lived a fascinating, doomed life.
Tom Stoppard, Nonstop
“Hello, I’m from journalism. I’ve come to inspect you. Take off your clothes and lie down.”
Death of a Playmate
The Dorothy Stratten Saga, the true story behind “Star-80.”
The Essential Ron Rosenbaum: Part Two
Another Master Class.
What Might Have Been
Bobby Jones and the Fight for Racial Justice in Golf
Seeing Catch-22 Twice
“People speak too narrowly when they talk of Catch-22 as a satire of humanity. It’s that, yes, and there are few better. But it’s really a vicious satiric attack on God, as much as his poorly made creatures.”
The Last of the Iron-Assed Loners
“I have been asked,” he announced in a vigorous bass voice, “what it’s like to be a personage of the cinema.” He gave his audience a slow ironic glare. “It’s like being trampled to death by geese.”
Scroll Man
When Washington lawyer Hershel Shanks changed careers and got interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, he turned an arcane academic debate into an intercontinental spectator sport. Biblical archaeology would never be the same.
Fear of Reading: Lexical Anhedonia Sweeps the Land
What to do when you have the inability to feel pleasure while reading.
The Strange Death of Danny Casolaro
Was the reporter who claimed to have found the missing link between Iran-contra, the October Surprise, and B.C.C.I. a victim of a conspiracy—or of conspiracy theories?
The Day the Soul Train Crashed
In the ’70s, Gamble and Huff built an empire in Philadelphia by making records that appealed to both Black and White audiences. By the early ’80s, their multimillion-dollar kingdom crumbled and everyone stood to lose.