Island of the cannibal Republicans One New York writer welcomes GOP delegates with a self-published Swiftian satire -- recipes included!
By David Womack [08/30/04]

All Kobe, all the time Why don't environmental stories get covered? Because the giant media conglomerates -- with the help of the Bush administration -- have abandoned any notion of civic responsibility.
By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. [08/24/04]

Prairie fire Garrison Keillor talks about why he is flamingly anti-Bush and pro-Democrat.
By David Talbot [08/21/04]

Writing in the Margins What's hot in indie publishing, from Greg Palast's anti-Dubya card deck to a coffee-table book of antiwar art and a photographic study of NYC's back-in-the-day graffiti writers. Plus: The '80s punk hero who's been forgotten but shouldn't be.
By Scott Thill [08/04/04]

Perfect Circle: Chapter 4 Life is a firework, a burst of light in the sky. When you die, it's like the rocket is falling. But for a ghost, like the girl Hanlon killed, death is a bad photograph, transfixing you. Our final excerpt from the new ghost-bustin' thriller.
By Sean Stewart [07/30/04]

The funniest children's book ever The author of the "Dark Materials" fantasy series introduces a surreal Australian children's classic that's nearly unknown in America, Norman Lindsay's "Magic Pudding."
By Philip Pullman [07/28/04]

Dark victory Jim Knipfel has lost almost all his vision, suffered life-threatening seizures, attempted suicide and spent time in a mental hospital. He's also one of the driest, funniest memoirists working today.
By Christopher Dreher [07/27/04]

Perfect Circle: Chapter 3 "Look, this chick, she is after you. I mean, your car is the last thing she ever saw. The dead are like that. They get fixated." The third excerpt from Sean Stewart's ghostly page-turner.
By Sean Stewart [07/23/04]

The man who invented the future Alan Moore, who reinvented the comic book as the cutting-edge literary medium of our day, talks about beheading, the diabolical power of the media, the Bush dynasty and the fall of Tony Blair.
By Scott Thill [07/22/04]

Can Israel be saved? Richard Ben Cramer talks about "How Israel Lost," his exploration of how the occupation of Palestinian land has corrupted the soul of the Jewish state he loves.
By Gary Kamiya [07/19/04]

The war for the soul of literature Two critics, one revered and the other almost universally reviled, protest that the literary world has been taken over by big, bad, "ambitious" novels.
By Laura Miller [07/15/04]

Let's save literature from the literati Despite more gloom and doom on the Op-Ed pages, books have not been killed off by the "visual culture."
By Charles Taylor [07/14/04]

A matter of survival The author of "Imperial Hubris" says the moral cowardice and political correctness of senior intelligence officials have severely hurt the war on terrorism.
By Mary Jacoby [07/13/04]

Citizen Flynt The hustler's new book accuses the president of paying for an illegal abortion, the press of lying down on the job and Ann Coulter of being a "fag hag."
By David Bowman [07/08/04]

Who says theory is dead? Gender-theory superstar Judith Butler takes on 9/11 and its aftermath in a new book -- written in clear English! But the task of postmodern theory, she argues, is more crucial now than ever.
By Astra Taylor [07/06/04]

Perfect Circle: Chapter 2 I never walked down a ghost road myself. There are some places we just aren't meant to go. Our second excerpt from cult novelist Sean Stewart's unearthly thriller.
By Sean Stewart [07/09/04]

Perfect Circle: Chapter 1 Ghosts are all different, like demons, not all the same, like zombies. They all want something. If you've got the sense God gave a cockroach, you stay away from them.
[07/02/04]

He is trying to break our hearts With a new album out and an intriguing new biography spinning the tale of his tormented career, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy looks like the leading American rocker of his generation. Which may tell you something about the state of American rock.
By Eric Boehlert [06/29/04]

How the Democrats lost the heartland Thomas Frank talks about why Middle America, once a bastion of left-wing populism, has become red-state Republican.
By Andrew O'Hehir [06/28/04]

The gay attacks on Pauline Kael How did America's leading film critic, who was fearlessly opposed to cant and dogma of all stripes, come to be seen as a homophobe?
By Craig Seligman [06/25/04]

The United States of Texas Two new books document the death grip that Bush, Cheney and their corporate cronies have on America.
By Farhad Manjoo [06/24/04]