New York Times
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The Sins of the Gray Lady September 19, 2024
The following is a chapter from the recently released book, “Against the Corporate Media: Forty-two Ways the Press Hates You.”Readers of the New York Times know the news may change, but the message is always the same in their paper of record. It will...
Sex, Drugs, Raves and Heartbreak September 13, 2024
The “breakdown” in the subtitle of Emily Witt’s haunting new book, “Health and Safety,” isn’t hers. It belongs to Andrew, her boyfriend of four years; he started behaving erratically when pandemic lockdowns in 2020 put an end to the underground party...
On Not Losing Our Minds to Technology September 10, 2024
Recently, the New York Times reported on a curious story about Snoo, a popular “smart” bassinet that sells for $1,700. “Happiest Baby, the company that makes Snoo, began charging for access to some of the bassinet’s premium features — features that u...
Language and Leonard Michaels September 05, 2024
All that great writing, trapped in mediocre books! —Elif BatumanCatachresis leads to anthropophagy. —David Bentley HartOrdinary people have a right to feel harassed when their language is criticized. We have grammar school for that kind of thing afte...
Is a Writer a Kind of Spy? September 03, 2024
Rachel Kushner had warned me that there might be snakes and one very mean turkey on the farm. There would also be mud; she recommended rubber boots. And, as far as she remembered, there was no cell service.The property in Delaware County, N.Y., belon...
Tom Wolfe’s Irresistible Snap, Crackle and Pop August 16, 2024
There are certain writers you should never read before you yourself sit down to write, like P.G. Wodehouse and Tom Wolfe. For if you do, you will not be able to get their voices and rhythms out of your head, and you will have to confront the absolute...
The Gray Lady Sings August 16, 2024
On Monday, the New York Times editorial board announced that it will no longer endorse candidates for mayor of New York City and governor of New York State. The abrupt change ends a tradition that has played a crucial role in local politics since 189...
How the Gay-Rights Movement Lost Its Way August 13, 2024
When Sarah Kate Ellis was named president of GLAAD more than a decade ago, the LGBTQ advocacy organization was in dire financial straits. “I was given a scary mandate,” she told The New York Times in 2019: “Fix it or shut it down.”She should have don...
Reintroducing T.J. Newman August 09, 2024
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, or you haven’t been to an airport bookstore in the past three years, you’ve probably heard of literary wunderkind T.J. Newman. A former flight attendant, Newman started scribbling down ideas for thriller novels...
Why Readers Love — And Love to Hate — Colleen Hoover August 09, 2024
This weekend, one of the most popular books of the decade is making its way to the big screen. Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us, a romantic tearjerker about breaking the cycle of abuse that became a social media sensation after it was published in 20...
The Allure of the Literary Ranked List July 16, 2024
Like everyone else “into literature” and possessing an internet connection in the last week, I’ve been deeply invested in the New York Times’s “100 Best Books of the 21st Century.” I’ve read 23 of them and included brief reviews of each below—some bo...
The Best Books of the 21st Century July 15, 2024
Yesterday the New York Times announced its choices for the ten best books of the 21st century—the final step in its countdown of the top 100.Eight out of the top ten selections have already been reviewed here at The Honest Broker—in a section called ...
Three Thoughts on the NYT Top 100 July 15, 2024
If you pay attention to the literary discourse, you’ve likely been following the New York Times “The 100 Best Books of the 21st Century” list. Like all such lists, it is alternatively interesting, baffling, and predictable. Mostly, it is fodder for c...
Economics for the Age of TikTok July 08, 2024
IN 2022, AS THE labor market thrived, a noticeable gap emerged between traditional economic indicators (which seemed good) and the lived experiences of Americans (which seemed not). Kyla Scanlon, a young and wildly popular economics commentator (with...
Romance Bookstores Are Booming July 08, 2024
Last summer, when Mae Tingstrom had the idea to open a romance bookstore in Ventura, Calif., the first thing she did was search online to see whether there was already one in her region. She found The Ripped Bodice — a bookstore in Culver City that w...
Liberalism and the West’s ‘Crisis of Meaning’ July 05, 2024
In a recent essay for the New York Times, David Brooks lamented what he sees as the deficiencies of liberalism. Unlike religion, which Brooks believes has long satisfied the need for meaning and purpose in human life, liberalism has proven incapable ...
What to “The New York Times” is the Fourth of July? July 02, 2024
The editors and journalists at The New York Times are fixing to celebrate the Fourth of July in a few days. One has to wonder why.After all, the newspaper of record has declared, through its sponsorship of The 1619 Project, that July 4 is a bogus hol...
How the #Resistance Put Nellie Bowles Out in the Scold May 17, 2024
Nellie Bowles was a good leftist: she ran the gay-straight alliance at her high school, read The Nation, reported for the New York Times and even proudly joined the cancellation of a white author friend, ahem, ex-friend, caught up in a literary race ...
How The New York Times Went Woke May 16, 2024
It’s been a little while now, and it might be hard to remember that it was ever any different, but remember the pandemic and the rage. Remember many of us isolated, on our phones, on our computers, the stock market strangely rising as the government ...
The Double Life of a Conservative Gadfly May 16, 2024
Glenn C. Loury’s new book, “Late Admissions,” is unlike any economist’s memoir I have ever read. Most don’t mention picking up streetwalkers. Or smoking crack in a faculty office at Harvard’s Kennedy School — or in an airplane at 30,000 feet. Or stea...
Alice Munro, Master of the Short Story, Dies at 92 May 15, 2024
Alice Munro, the revered Canadian author who started writing short stories because she did not think she had the time or the talent to master novels, then stubbornly dedicated her long career to churning out psychologically dense stories that dazzled...
Miranda July on Emotional Honesty May 14, 2024
Miranda July, the writer, filmmaker, and artist, has written “the First Great Perimenopause Novel,” as The New York Times Magazine proclaimed last week. I came to a similar conclusion while reading the novel in question, All Fours, which chronicles o...
"All Fours" by Miranda July May 13, 2024
A semi-famous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to NY. Thirty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, checks into a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in an entirely diffe...
From Misogyny to No Man's Land May 13, 2024
In 1963, Mary McCarthy published The Group. A ranging social novel that follows eight female friends after their graduation from Vassar College in 1933, The Group was a smashing success, soaring to the top of the New York Times best-seller list and b...
Claire Messud’s New Novel Is a Masterpiece May 09, 2024
In a 2021 New York Times essay, Jonathan Lee probed the resurgence of the historical novel untethered from conventions of genre — a vital and groundbreaking form, more than just a dutiful recreation of the past. As he observed: "Perhaps it has its ro...
