Reporters on war’s frontlines often produce great investigative journalism (this was truer in the days before embedded reporters.) They also, sometimes inadvertently, sometimes not, produce “war porn,” writing that vividly, graphically, sometimes almost joyfully, details the carnage of war and weaponry, of organized violence, and the men who live and die by its rules. TheContinue reading “Sebastian Junger, AK-47 Bullets, and War Porn”
Category Archives: Books
Walking and Reading
We all know the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time is a rare talent. But what about walking and reading? This seems a rather more mundane ability, if the number of New Yorkers that indulge in the act of simultaneous perambulation and literary consumption is any indicator. This city’s sidewalks areContinue reading “Walking and Reading”
Things You Could Find On A Professor’s Office Door: Cavafy’s City
Professors put the darndest things on their office doors: I’ll-be-back-in-five-minutes notices, announcements of conferences, descriptions of new classes, suitably anonymized student grades, political posters, stickers. And then it gets wierd: vacation photos, children’s drawings, cartoons (a perennial faculty favorite in New York appears to be New Yorker cartoons), and of course, jokes culled from theContinue reading “Things You Could Find On A Professor’s Office Door: Cavafy’s City”
The Tyranny of the Tourism Poster
On December 26th, as I waited for a ferry to take me from Fajardo to Culebra, I noticed a poster for the Luis Pena Nature Reserve (more accurately, for the Cayo Luis Pena, part of the Culebra National Wildlife Refuge). As I gazed at the dazzling blue waters, the painfully-white glistening sands, bewitched by theContinue reading “The Tyranny of the Tourism Poster”
Katha Pollitt, George Orwell, Essayists and Posterity
For a couple of days now, Katha Pollitt’s obit/remembrance of Christopher Hitchens has been making the rounds to near-universal adulation. For good reasons; the piece is well worth a read, especially as it highlights aspects of Hitchens’ writing and personality that few have seen fit to focus on (especially not by his drinking buddies, whoseContinue reading “Katha Pollitt, George Orwell, Essayists and Posterity”
The Decline and Fall of Christopher Hitchens
I have no talents to speak of; all I can do is read and write. Thus, it would make eminent sense for me to admire those that read a great deal, and write really well. Christopher Hitchens evidently read a lot, and he wielded his pen and keyboard with great flair. He was also aContinue reading “The Decline and Fall of Christopher Hitchens”
The Library Noise Zone
The Internet’s latest viral video seems to be that of a young female student at Cal State-Northridge, loudly, angrily, berating her fellow students for “breathing too loudly” in the library. The video is apparently evoking much hilarity; I have not seen it myself and don’t intend to link to it. More evidence of excessively high-strung,Continue reading “The Library Noise Zone”
Samir Chopra 