Martin Amis

Earlier this year, when Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed a 100-book required reading list for his compatriots, it provoked anxiety, rekindling memories of Soviet-era censorship. The furor underscored an important point: that literature plays a...

I'd been working as a lowly scrub at the Nation in New York when, in 1979, I was asked to track down Christopher Hitchens on a trip I happened to be taking to London. My assignment: To lure him to come work for us. I was a convincing emissary, because...

Christopher Hitchens, the engaging and enraging British-American author and essayist whose polemical writings on religion, politics, war and other provocations established him as one of his generation's most robust public intellectuals, has died. He was...

Dominic West won't be playing a serial killer again any time soon. The British actor, best known for his role as hard-drinking detective Jimmy McNulty on "The Wire," had his fill of the darker side while filming "Appropriate Adult" (9 p.m. Saturday,...

August Brown writes: For me, his greatest influence was on the page. His style was defined by a refusal to resort to stock images and analysis -- or to accept them from others....

The first Hatchet Job of the Year Award is designed to celebrate the year's most elegantly cutting book review....

The National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its 2011 book awards at a public ceremony on Saturday in New York City. Two Southern California writers are among those up for the awards, which will be presented on March......

Martin Amis once wrote a book explaining how to win at Pac-Man....

My nightstand is weighed down by reminders of my good intentions gone astray-- books I have purchased, started, enjoyed, set aside in favor of a more urgent reading task and, well, you know. For example, "Time's Arrow," a fascinating novel......

Forget that Packers-Bears rivalry. The greatest grudge match in history was waged by Thomas Wolfe and F. Scott Fitzgerald over the proper way to write fiction. In a letter to Fitzgerald, Wolfe called himself a “putter-inner.” He tried to cram...

Good Sunday Morning, Fellow Seekers. Happy Easter to our Christian readers. The rains have finally ended and the sun is shining here at Casa de Capitol Ideas as we ready ourselves for an egg huntin our little corner of suburbia.......

Letters Saul Bellow, edited by Benjamin Taylor Viking: 608 pp, $35 Saul Bellow, being Saul Bellow, coined literary profit from emotional tumult. From personal pain came self-exploration and impish bons mots, poured into the heightened confessional of...