This author is one of those literary figures who is most often encountered as a minor figure in the biographies of better known artists with whom he was friends, such as Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Max Ernst, and William Carlos... Read More

Over the course of five decades and two dozen books, V. S. Naipaul has taken his readers on journeys through the postcolonial landscapes of India, the West Indies, and the Middle East. (Some would consider his 1989 bestseller, A Turn in... Read More

Weaver’s blue-collar background still shows in some of his poems. He spent fifteen years working in a factory before returning to college, eventually earning a M.F.A. and holding an endowed chair at Simmons College. When he writes of... Read More

Based upon the anecdotes that he tells from his own practice, Smith seems like the type of physician that is too often missing in these accelerated times: one who talks and, more importantly, listens to his patients, often uncovering the... Read More

In 1993, when R.E.M. named their new album Automatic for the People after the slogan of one of the band’s favorite eateries, they catapulted its proprietor to international fame. Weaver D, as he is commonly called, was already well... Read More

The academic is surely one of the least likely suspects to participate in the recent vogue of memoir writing. One would think that the long hours spent in libraries required to earn a Ph.D. and become a professor would not provide enough... Read More

With the passage of the Equal Employment Act of 1972 many women found doors opened to jobs that had previously been reserved for men. Carlson was the first woman hired as a pipefitter by Minnegasco, the Minneapolis Gas Company. In this... Read More

Many of the statistics are well known and have been bantered around as evidence of a variety of problems. Nevertheless they remain shocking: one third of all black men in their twenties are either in jail, on parole, or on probation;... Read More