Charles Simic rsquo s poetry is and always has been gnomic His poems read like little messages containing clues mdash though often at first sight clues too cryptic to be put to use It both pleases and puzzles that at just the moment when a poem seems to approach a newly discovered center of grav

The surprising similarities between George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh

A life of Mary Cassatt

Prisoners have often written about their lives behind bars but Jens Soering rsquo s The Church of the Second Chance stands out because it involved considerable research How a reader might ask could a person serving a life sentence for murder with only limited access to a typewriter and none to

'Netherland' is not another razzle-dazzle, postmodern novel for 23-year-old M.F.A.s.

The damage done is deep and chronic.