Millard Kaufman

By Mary Richardson at 10:23 PM on December 3, 2007

Two items to check off before dying: (a) publish a book, and (b) abandon predictability...  read more

Going South

By Joey Rubin at 3:38 PM on December 1, 2007

   In 1965, at the age of 15, my father—along with his parents and two brothers—emigrated from a racist South Africa. His relationship with that nation, over the 42 years since, has been a complicated one. For a decade, he traveled with a South African passport and the racist complicity it advertised. Today, in the U.S., his birthplace is only present in the vague British-ness of his accent, and even that has softened over the years.     ...  read more

Signs of Life 2007: Best Books / Best Games

By Palmer Houchins at 12:01 AM on November 30, 2007

The sun has set on our Top 100 Albums and Top 50 Films of 2007 features. Try not to let your head blow up here, because we now bring to you our final year-end Signs of Life installment: the literary and gaming realms. In our books section, some of today's best authors, like Dave Eggers, Naomi Klein, Charles Frazier and Jack Pendarvis, tell us the best books they read this year. Meanwhile, we're also proud to present the top 10 games of 2007. Finally, tell us what your year-end favorites were in our Readers Signs of Life Poll. Links: Best...  read more

Signs of Life 2007 : Best Books

By Paste Staff at 3:25 PM on November 29, 2007

Ever wonder what people who write books are busy reading? Which titles they’ve found most enjoyable or have hit them the hardest lately? For this year-end issue, we asked some of our culture’s best and brightest what they had on the nightstand—or on the back of the loo...  read more

Paul Drummond

By Ed Ward at 9:36 PM on November 27, 2007

An incredible tale lurks in the 400+ pages of tiny type here...  read more

Diana Secker Tesdell [Ed.]

By Charles McNair at 9:28 PM on November 27, 2007

Think you’ve heard it all? Every tiny reindeer named, every Grinch ungrinched...  read more

Antonio Monda

By Charles McNair at 5:17 PM on November 13, 2007

Italian cultural critic Antonio Monda is an unapologetic believer...  read more

G. Willow Wilson with art by M.K. Perker

By Montana Wojczuk at 5:10 PM on November 13, 2007

The first graphic novel by journalist G. Willow Wilson, Cairo is an irreverent...  read more

Ha Jin

By Charles McNair at 5:02 PM on November 13, 2007

Jin Xuefei—Ha Jin to readers of his seven previous works of fiction...  read more

Author Norman Mailer: 1923-2007

By Jeremy Goldmeier at 10:21 AM on November 12, 2007

Norman Mailer, author, journalist, iconoclast and brawler, died Saturday of renal failure at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He was 84. Following the 1948 publication of his breakthrough World War II novel, The Naked and the Dead, Mailer lived as a literary celebrity - and certainly made the most of it. From stabbing his second of six wives, to butting heads (literally) with fellow novelist Gore Vidal, to a failed run for New York mayor, Mailer never stayed far out of the spotlight. Emulating his idol Earnest Hemingway, Mailer tried to fashion himself as a self-made tough guy...  read more

Jann S. Wenner & Corey Seymour

By Austin L. Ray at 2:19 PM on November 5, 2007

Hunter S. Thompson, to many, is nothing more than a wild-eyed maniac...  read more

Dusted Off: Pet Sematary

By William Gay at 4:03 PM on November 2, 2007

By the time Pet Sematary was published...  read more

Dusted Off: Pack of Two

By Jen A. Miller at 3:52 PM on November 2, 2007

Knapp was an exceptional journalist and essayist, and her writing dug into the roots of a neurosis that plagued her. By putting herself on display, she showed us much more about ourselves and the society that shapes us...  read more

Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace

By Todd Deery at 9:42 AM on October 31, 2007

Whether you spend your days tweaking the cup size...  read more

Margaret Cezair-Thompson

By Irene Clark at 9:30 AM on October 31, 2007

The central character of The Pirate’s Daughter is not the young...  read more

Oliver Sacks

By David Fulmer at 5:00 PM on October 16, 2007

Early on in Musicophilia, there’s a tale about a patient who develops...  read more

Doris Lessing wins '07 Nobel Prize for Literature

By Jeremy Goldmeier at 3:41 PM on October 11, 2007

The young lions of literature will have to wait for their turn another year. As will the middle-aged lions, for that matter. Doris Lessing, at the spry age of 87, beat out all of them, and became the eldest ever recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature. She's only the second woman to win the award in the past decade, joining Austria's Elfriede Jelinek, who captured the honor in 2004. Lessing, of the U.K., stands to many as one of the greats of feminist literature, although she herself has long felt uneasy with the term. Her 1962 novel The Golden...  read more

Orhan Pamuk

By Charles McNair at 4:55 PM on October 8, 2007

Pamuk’s first publication since his 2006 Nobel Prize endows him with a satisfying sense of humanness...  read more

Ann Patchett

By Greg Changnon at 4:46 PM on October 8, 2007

After the wild success of her last novel Bel Canto, Patchett mixes things up in her latest by going small...  read more

Stephen Colbert

By Chuck Leddy at 4:24 PM on October 5, 2007

“I’m perfectly fine with someone choosing to be gay, as long as he keeps it to himself and marries a woman and has kids like the rest of us.”...  read more