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- “Precision and accuracy are necessary for both white and black writers. ‘A black aesthetic’ should not be an excuse for sloppy writing.” — poet and publisher Dudley Randall
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Tag Archives: Serbia
“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.” — Rebecca West
It’s her birthday today. It is hard to talk about her without referencing the generations of writers she inspired, all of whom admit their debt. Robert Kaplan is the most open about it (in Balkan Ghosts, which launched his career, … Continue reading
Posted in Books, On This Day, writers
Tagged Austria, Balkans, D.H. Lawrence, Ford Madox Ford, France, George Bernard Shaw, Germany, Katherine Mansfield, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, nonfiction, politics, Rebecca West, Roman empire, Russia, Serbia, W.B. Yeats, war, Yugoslavia
21 Comments
Emir Kusturica
This Bosnian-born Serbian filmmaker has my love for his film Arizona Dream, his first American film, starring Faye Dunaway, Johnny Depp, Lili Taylor, Jerry Lewis, and Vincent Gallo. I wrote about it for my Film Comment column. The film was … Continue reading
Posted in Directors, Movies, On This Day
Tagged Arizona Dream, Balkans, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Johnny Depp, Lili Taylor, Serbia, Yugoslavia
3 Comments
Recommended Books: Non-Fiction
I have been meaning to do a Part 2 to my Recommended Books: Fiction list – put together years ago. I wanted to recommend non-fiction, from history books to biographies to essays to whatever. Here is the Non-Fiction list. I’ve … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Founding Fathers, Theatre
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Afghanistan, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Hamilton, Austria, Balkan Ghosts, Balkans, baseball, Belfast, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Catherine Drinker-Bowen, Central Asia, China, Crowds and Power, Dava Sobel, David McCullough, Edmund Burke, Edvard Radzinsky, Elias Canetti, Elvis Presley, England, Federalist Papers, Founding Brothers, France, Germany, Group Theatre, Gulag Archipelago, Hitler, Hunter S. Thompson, Imperium, Ireland, Iris Chang, Isaac Newton, James Madison, Janet Malcolm, Japan, Joseph Ellis, Michael Schmidt, Miracle at Philadelphia, nonfiction, Olivia Laing, Philip Gourevitch, poetry, Primo Levi, Rasputin, Rebecca West, Red Sox, Robert Conquest, Robert Kaplan, Roman empire, Russia, Rwanda, Ryszard Kapuściński, science, Serbia, Shakespeare, Stalin, The Great Terror, The Soccer War, Tom Wolfe, true crime, Ukraine, Vincent Bugliosi, WWI, WWII, Yugoslavia
19 Comments
2010 Books Read
Round-up of the books I read this year, in the order in which I read them. I am nearly finished with one last book (a collection of stories by Miranda July, given to me by my sister Siobhan for my … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged A.S. Byatt, Andrei Tarkovsky, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Annie Proulx, books read, Dava Sobel, David O. Selznick, David Thomson, E.M. Forster, Elia Kazan, Ellen Terry, Emily Dickinson, Ernest Hemingway, Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Fred Astaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Bernard Shaw, George Orwell, George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, Ireland, Jane Langton, Jaws, Joan Blondell, John Banville, John McGahern, Mark Helprin, Orson Welles, Oscar Wilde, Peter Bogdanovich, Rebecca West, Roman Polanski, Ron Chernow, Russia, Serbia, Shakespeare, Shirley Jackson, Stefan Zweig, Sylvia Beach, Tana French, Tennessee Williams, Warren Beatty
37 Comments