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MOST RECENT ARTICLES BY:

Sam Anderson

  1. cheek by jowl
    Anderson: Poetry Month Showdown, Herrera vs. KleinzahlerThe thick-mustachioed activist against the grumpy contrarian!
  2. Washington MonumentThat’s one tall woman.
  3. A Hideous, Vital WarmthWells Tower’s beautiful stories about gut-wrenching violence.
  4. dfw
    Anderson: Wrestling With the Mini-Biography of David Foster WallaceOur book critic is of two minds about an epic ‘New Yorker’ article on the life and death of David Foster Wallace.
  5. Hand OffLoving, and mourning, scribbling.
  6. Love and TerrorA new novel declares war on apolitical fiction. And wins by losing.
  7. Three Pages a DayJohn Updike’s permanent present tense.
  8. obit
    Anderson: John Updike, EssayistHe was one of the greatest belletrists of all time — a master of the short, casual, elegant, whimsical, roving piece about absolutely anything.
  9. New Lit Boy: Tao LinTao Lin is a world-class perpetrator of gimmickry. His first novel is called Eeeee Eee Eeee, which is the sound anthropomorphic dolphins make wh […]
  10. The New Is NowThe doomsayers are right: The end is near. And that’s a good thing. A look at a collection of people, happenings, and ideas that point to a new […]
  11. Wake Up, Little SusieThe early journals of Susan Sontag reveal a pretentious, insecure, surprisingly lovable narcissist.
  12. The Top Ten Books1. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon (Riverhead) An ingenious mirror-narrative about two lives separated by 100 years: Lazarus, a 19-year […]
  13. The Basketball Dork’s BibleHow much hoops analysis is too much?
  14. bolanopalooza
    Read an Excerpt From Roberto Bolaño’s New Poetry CollectionIf you want a Bolaño book that’s not going to tip your car over, ‘The Romantic Dogs’ has you covered.
  15. bolanopalooza
    Essential Bolaño: The Five Most Unskippable Passages in ‘2666’If you’re thinking of quitting, try one of these first. It might inspire you to settle in and read the rest.
  16. bolanopalooza
    Roberto Bolaño’s Five-Page Sentence: Read It Here First!Read it for Bolaño’s obvious improvisational delight in keeping the sentence afloat, phrase by phrase — a skill the critic James Wood once compared to ‘someone punting a leaf.’
  17. Prose PoemRoberto Bolaño’s brilliant, messy everything novel.
  18. Five LivesWhat Emily Post has in common with Rimbaud.
  19. Algorithm & BluesThe wonder and terror of Google.
  20. In Conversation: Richard Price and Junot DíazTwo New York novelists on the death of Times Square, the afterbirth of the Lower East Side, and the importance of ghosts.
  21. Infinite LossDavid Foster Wallace, 1962–2008
  22. obit
    Sam Anderson Remembers David Foster WallaceLots of public figures organize their work around the demons that eventually take them down, but few of them ever do so with the apparent wisdom and self-awareness Wallace did.
  23. Go Ask AliceThe even-timelier-than-expected novel about Laura Bush.
  24. Bolaño’s Best for Last?The posthumous literary superstar has one final novel yet to appear in English. And it could be his greatest.
  25. How James Wood’s ‘How Fiction Works’ WorksAnd why it sometimes doesn’t.
  26. A History of HoochThe Greeks worshipped it; the Aztecs were a little more conflicted.
  27. Raise High the RaftersAt the Democratic convention, Obama will have to prove he’s more than just a brilliant speech giver—by giving the most difficult speech of his m […]
  28. The Sex Lives of OthersRobert Olen Butler trawls the outer limits (Nixon, Santa Claus) of erotic imagination.
  29. Dada’s BoyA reexamination of Chris Farley’s tragically short career.
  30. Anarchy and SemicolonsA novel in which a punctuation mark could almost be called destiny.
  31. The Memory AddictAugusten Burroughs doesn’t just write about his past. He holds séances.
  32. The New York Canon: BooksFrom Norman Mailer to Rem Koolhaas, 26 works of lapidary New Yorkitude.
  33. Peace OffensiveNicholson Baker gives the Good War a bad rap.
  34. Stalking the GramnoA book-review procedural about Richard Price’s Lush Life.
  35. Don’t LOLThe strange symbiosis of blogs and literature.
  36. Three More CareysThe Australian novelist really shines here, whether he’s dealing in Dickens, hoaxes, or an outlaw’s autobiography.
  37. Losing His VoicesPeter Carey, genius of literary mimicry, comes down with laryngitis.
  38. O’Flanngelists, Rejoice!Everyman’s is savior.
  39. Hair of the DoggerelIs a novel about werewolves/written in verse/necessarily cursed?
  40. The WinnerThose who thought the writers’ strike would bring down Leno misunderstood the power of his limitations.
  41. You Are the OneIn her new WWII novel, A.L. Kennedy survives her own obstacles (chief among them, writing a WWII novel).
  42. Taster’s ChoiceIs disdain for Céline Dion innate or learned? And what’s wrong with liking her music anyway?
  43. The Year in BooksRoberto Bolaño became literature’s new patron saint, Joshua Ferris goosed cubicle culture, Michael Chabon compared many things to many other thi […]
  44. The Victorian iPodAmazon’s new e-reader, Kindle, is good because it feels old. Wonder how long that’ll last.
  45. Rationalist of the AbsurdSteve Martin’s extraordinarily calculated comedy.
  46. BarthelmaniaDonald Barthelme’s new posthumous collection, with apologies to Donald Barthelme.
  47. French TwistHow to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read proves its own point.
  48. The Mother SmothererIn her new book, Alice Sebold commits a crime more grievous than murder: self-plagiarism.
  49. Schlong of MyselfMourning the death of Philip Roth’s funny bone.
  50. Exorcising the Dodgers50 years ago, the Dodgers left Ebbets Field for Los Angeles. Isn’t it time their ghosts left, too?
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