William S. Kowinski

There are basically two kinds of books on how to write: those by writers who are better known for their books on writing than for their writing, and those by famous writers that tell you how to write just like them. Maybe that’s why Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most famous, oracular and inimitable American essayist, […]

This is the mother of all Doonesbury books: a retrospective of the entire Doonesbury era from first glimmers in the Yale student paper to a few panels set in the Obama White House, in a big art book format. An informal but fact-filled historical essay is spread throughout, along with wonderful illustrations that show the […]

One of the unfortunate consequences of relentless attacks on the Darwinian concept of evolution by religious and political zealots is that scientists and others often respond to all challenges in Darwin’s neighborhood as fundamentalist enemy attacks. But there are legitimate questions from those who also reject creationism and broadly speaking consider themselves Darwinists. These challenges […]

Leaving the dour and obscure birthplace, the Working Class Hero travels far to lead a completely different life in a faster, posher, smarter capital of the world. But even though Alan Bennett went to Oxford, became a global celebrity soon afterwards (performing in the groundbreaking 1960s satirical review Beyond the Fringe) and later a respected London […]

We live in a world where time and space have been eliminated, where millions of people increasingly live in virtual worlds, and there’s no turning back. Right, and the real estate bubble will never burst and the stock market never goes down. The problem with our electronic future is that it all depends on electricity, […]

If you’re looking for another rave review of this novel, look just about anywhere else, starting with the New York Times Book Review, or Time magazine with Franzen on the cover as “Great American Novelist.” The hype by now is feeding on itself, but I began reading an advance copy of this novel months ago, […]

One of the pleasures associated with reading literature is reading about the literature one has read, and even better, about the great literature that one has not yet read and — melancholy fate — probably never will. But in this age when such reading is considered dorky as well as obsolete, a shining rationale is […]