[Words] 
Poetry legend surfaces again
If poets were cowboys, James Tate would be The Man with No Name. It would be the spaghettiest western ever;
[Words] 
One of the sad young literary men
Keith Gessen, co-editor of New York City’s n+1 magazine, has published his first novel. Dubbed part biography and part fiction, All The Sad Young Literary Men makes you take another look at our literary world, the ordinary failure and struggle behind those who find themselves in the unfortunate position of being writers.
[Words] 
Pities the fool that doesn't like the Atlantean myth
Cheese wrapper? Culinary wrestler? Grocery store chalkboard artist? That could only be one person: comic book artist Paul Maybury.
[Words] 
Bicycles, cycles and psychic icicles
Whether or not you are already a cycling enthusiast, scissoring through traffic, dodging death and car doors, Bicycle, the latest work from author of Patrick Fattaruso, will convert you into a believer. As the celebration not just of bikes but of the iconic worth of everyday objects, the book flaunts the author's careful and deliberate poetic prose while Fattaruso reminds his reader that beauty and inspiration are commonplace.
[Words] 
Aberration, absurdity, craziness, delirium, delusion, dementia …
Roget's Thesaurus was once a staple for essay writers and college freshmen, squeezing in between Webster's Dictionary and Strunk & White's Elements of Style. For most, shift+F7 has conveniently replaced it, but Roget's remains the godfather of the field.
[Words] 
War is Peace
World War II—not the sparkling backdrop for a juicy love triangle between Ben Affleck, Josh Hartnett and Kate Beckinsale. Nicholson Baker, in his latest book Human Smoke, dispels American glamorization of the "good" war and challenges textbook history in an episodic look at the players who brought the world to war, and the pacifists who fought to prevent it.
[Words] 
Kill your television
First it was your mom, and then it was your significant other. Now, Yale art historian David Joselit is here to tell you to turn off the damn TV and go outside. On March 19th, the author of Feedback—Television Against Democracy comes to MIT for a dialogue with MIT professor Caroline A. Jones about the social and political implications of the boob tube.
[Words] 
Imparting the worse advice ever
As a driving force behind The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Needham-born Ben Karlin pretty much saved the world, or at least the world of satire. Now he's out to help you with your miserable dating life by collecting essays from people like Stephen Colbert, Patton Oswalt and David Wain in an advice book called Things I've Learned From Women Who've Dumped Me.
[Words] 
A graphic mystery of human desire
Adrian Tomine (of Optic Nerve fame) makes gestures to graphic novels' origins. Like his predecessors Will Eisner and Frank Miller, he borrows from the film noir tradition with his stark black and white illustrations, his choice of settings (bars, empty apartments, movie theaters, and alleys in New York and San Francisco), and his miserable antihero, Ben Tanaka. But the mystery of Shortcomings isn't a murder or a jewel heist; it's what makes Ben tick.
[Words] 
Fancy this Phantasmagoria
It is both an orgasmic opportunity and a begetter of befuddlement that the readerly rabble have not engaged any Steven Millhauser stories—a freakish fortune because to discover this world of wonder is a ballistic befalling. Or maybe a provenance of perplexity, because his stuff is so drastically deluxe that it should have already been flung from your window, spraying shards of glass everywhere, cutting your tender toes and making you bleed for not having found it yourself by now.
