She Is Not a Robot
Joanna Stern’s book about AI is a fascinating, approachable glimpse of the future
Read more
Author: Elaine Margolin
In ‘Transcription,’ Ben Lerner Breaks the Spell of His Mother’s Voice
Anyone lucky enough to have read Ben Lerner’s explosive trilogy of first-person novels that straddle the border between fiction and memoir might get the sense that Lerner, though 47, is still a bit of a mama’s boy. These three novels, Leaving the Atocha Station (2011), 10:04 (2014) and The Topeka School (2019) all have male protagonists that are Lerner and yet are not. They love art, language, and poetry, but
Read more
A Devotion That Devours
Wayne Koestenbaum’s ‘My Lover, the Rabbi’ captures the agonizing beauty of obsessive love — and the man who can’t stop chasing it.
Read more
Rebecca, Martha, Emily and Julia
Writing about women writing and how they changed work and the world
Read more
Nobel-Winner’s New Novel Finds Freedom in Isolation — and the Lie Beneath It
Peter Handke turns inward again with his late career ‘The Ballad of the Last Guest’
Read more
‘The Story of ABBA’
Swedish music journalist doesn’t go deep enough inside the music
Read more
‘Waiting For Britney Spears’
Music journalist Jeff Weiss chronicles his aimless youthful tabloid pursuit of our most troubled diva
Read more
‘The Acid Queen’ Reclaims the Life of Rosemary Woodruff Leary
Susanah Calahan’s brilliant new biography brings Timothy Leary’s wife out of the LSD guru’s shadow
Read more
For the Love of K-Pop
Writer Giaae Kwon chronicles a life’s obsession with the world’s most popular music genre
Read more
In ‘Sucker Punch,’ Scaachi Koul Reveals Too Much, and Also Not Enough
True self-reflection is hard when you’re extremely online
Read more
‘Talk To Me’: No Substitute For the Lack of a Mother’s Love
In an incredibly moving memoir, writer Rich Benjamin struggles to come to terms with the lack of affection he received from a social-justice-obsessed family
Read more
Neko Case and the Art of Soft Rebellion
An affecting but tough memoir from an icon of Gen-X indie music
Read more
Martin Scorsese: The Amazing Graphic Novel
The French cartoonist Amazing Ameziane somehow channels the filmmaker’s psyche
Read more
The Fulfilling Life of Steve Wasserman
Editor and book critic’s collection of essays is a remarkable model of staying mentally young and intellectually curious
Read more
Inside the Neurotic Mind Of Bruce Eric Kaplan
‘They Went Another Way’, a memoir of doing housework and waiting for a deal in Hollywood
Read more