The Factory of Tears is a real place in Valzhyna Mort’s eponymous collection of poems. In fact, its productivity rate is higher than the Department of Transportation, the Department of Heart Affairs, and every other governmental... Read More

Commenting on a collection of reviews by John Simon, Richard Schickel notes that reviews are not meandering reflections but “consumer guidance” that must meet editorial demands of time and space. Schickel calls attention to Simon’s... Read More

When the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas wrote his poem, “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night,” he was pleading with his father to “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Thomas’s passionate plea to his dying father is a common... Read More

Ever since Dan Brown published his bestselling The Da Vinci Code in 2004, thrillers about religious history have become a lucrative, if predictable, staple of the publishing world. To stand out from the stacks, it seems, would take an... Read More

“Misbehaving 4-year-old may have a disorder,” headlines an advice column in a major metro newspaper (“Ask Amy,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 10-22-07). Almost daily, children’s behavioral problems are in the news and the parents’... Read More