"Perfect Reader"? Not Really.

Readers of this blog will not be surprised that I picked up the novel, "Perfect Reader" (Pantheon, 2010), by Maggie Pouncey, at the library mainly on the basis of the alluring title, along with a quick perusal of the jacket verbiage. Perfect title, right? Perhaps my expectations were unreasonably high, but I was somewhat disappointed. Upon her famous critic and scholar father's death, the main character, Flora, finds she has been appointed his literary executor. Because of her parents' divorce and other problems, she has been somewhat distant from her father in recent years, but -- apparently on a whim and because she is not happy with her job anyway -- she goes "home" to Darwin, the small college town where she grew up, and where her father lived and taught. She camps out in his house -- now hers -- and dithers about what to do about a cache of poetry he wrote in his last year. When the poetry turns out to be about his new lover, one that Flora had not been aware of, her ambivalence about her father, about the poems, and about her role as his daughter and his literary executor increases. She seems to be paralyzed by indecision about whether to publish the poems, not to mention what she should do with the rest of her own life, and although she is perhaps meant to be a sympathetic character, I found her annoyingly passive and preoccupied with her own not very earthshaking dilemmas. The writing is fine, and the novel kept me reading, but I finished it with a "so what" shrug.

On Forgetting What We Read

On 2/24/10, I posted on the problem of forgetting the contents of many of the books we read. Several friends have told me they have this problem, and I often do as well. My newest rationalization of this phenomenon is that those of us who read a lot have too much to keep track of and therefore are more likely to forget what we read than people who only read a couple of books a year. Self-serving reasoning, no? I was pleased to see in last Sunday's (9/19/10) New York Times Book Review an essay by James Collins (author of the charming novel "Beginner's Greek," which I recommend) titled "The Plot Escapes Me." He ruefully reflects on the fact that he forgets much of what he reads, and then wryly asks the question, "Why read books if we can't remember what's in them?" He seeks professional expertise from Maryanne Wolf, a professor of child development and author of "Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain." She reassures Collins -- and by extension, us -- that "I totally believe that you are a different person for having read [his latest book read]," and continues by saying that reading creates pathways in the brain, strengthening different mental processes. She says that "we can't retrieve the specifics" of books we read, "but to adapt a phrase of William James's, there is a wraith of memory." I very much like the phrase "a wraith of memory" and find it resonates with my own experience. Wolf concludes by saying, again reassuringly, that "It's there [in our brains]. You are the sum of it all." Thank you, James Collins, for raising this question, and thank you, Maryanne Wolf, for your answers.

"A Gate at the Stairs"

Seeing that "A Gate at the Stairs," by Lorrie Moore, originally published in 2009,is now in paperback (from Vintage Contemporaries) gives me an opportunity to recommend this wonderful novel. Moore, best known as a short story writer, has written a thoroughly engaging coming-of-age story about a Midwestern college student, Tassie Keltjin, who is hired as a nanny for a mixed-race child even before the child is adopted. Tassie is naive, finding her way in life, being exposed to many new ideas and people at her liberal arts college; her experiences both at college and with the family she nannies for, as well as her expanding awareness of the larger world during the events of 9/11, contribute to her rapid maturing during this period. Tassie is often lonely, as is her employer Sarah, and there are some sad parts of the novel, as well as times of pleasure and enlightenment. Tassie is a very believable and likeable character, and the novel is both serious and often humorous, and very readable. Moore is -- as I am far from the first to note -- a terrific writer, and this novel is a gift to readers.

The Alices

As I was typing my post on 9/23/10, I started to type Alice McDermott's name but accidentally typed "Alice Hoffman" instead. I immediately realized my mistake and corrected it, but it reminded me of how many contemporary authors there are with the first name Alice. There's one of my very favorite writers, Canadian writer Alice Munro (whom I posted about on 7/22/10); Munro is considered by many to be the greatest short story writer alive, and a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature. There is the above-mentioned novelist Alice McDermott, who writes about Irish-American Catholic families in Long Island and Brooklyn. There's Alice Hoffman, also mentioned above, whose novels often include a touch of magic. There is the womanist/feminist, activist, African-American writer Alice Walker (whom I wrote about here on 5/26/10). There's Alice Sebold, author of the haunting novel "The Lovely Bones." And although she died a few years ago, I want to pay tribute to novelist and short story writer Alice Adams, who lived in and wrote about San Francisco; I felt I "knew" the neighborhoods and the women she wrote about. Consider this post an ode of gratitude to these fine writers, these Alices, whose fiction has given me such pleasure.

Distracted by Voices...Then Not

On 2/6/10 I wrote about enjoying audio books while driving. I mentioned one of my favorite readers, Flo Gibson, who has read dozens of books on tape. At first I didn't like her gravelly voice, but I got used to it and then fond of it. I was reminded of this a few days ago when I started listening to Alice McDermott's novel "After This," read by Martha Plimpton, whom I like and respect as an actor. But her voice as a reader -- at least on this recording -- is rather sibilant, and the "sssssss" and "shhhhhhhhh" sounds were distracting for the first half hour or so. Then, somehow, magically, I started not to notice them any more; they either went away, or I got used to them, as I got absorbed in the novel. Now I am enjoying her reading, and happily looking forward to my commute each day.

"Bitter in the Mouth"

I was mesmerized by Monique Truong's "The Book of Salt" when it came out in 2003. That novel about the Vietnamese cook for writer Gertrude Stein and her lesbian companion Alice B. Toklas was beautifully written. So I was excited when I saw that Truong had published a new novel, "Bitter in the Mouth" (Random House, 2010). This novel is also narrated by, and focuses on, a Vietnamese character, but in this case it is a young woman, Linda, who is adopted at age seven by a couple in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. She grows up in this small Southern town family with the usual -- and some not so usual -- dysfunctions. One of the themes of the book is the importance of family, even unusual families. Her closest family members are her adoptive father, who dies early, and her gay transvestite great uncle, Baby Harper, who is everything to her. By the end of the novel, we find out more about the complicated tangled relationships of her family and of her birth parents. The other main plot strand is Linda's synesthesia; the variety of the syndrome that she has causes words to have tastes. She only tells a very few trusted people about this, and only toward the end of the novel does she realize that she is not the only one with this unusual situation, and that it has a name. The author represents these associations as follows: "What'sgrahamcracker so funnycucumber, Leoparsnip?" Although the author is thereby making us experience Linda's world, I must admit that this got tiresome after awhile. "Bitter in the Mouth" is a rich, original, intriguing novel, and I am glad I read it, but it doesn't quite measure up to "The Book of Salt."

Manhattan: America's Literary Living Room?

So many American novels are set in New York, and especially Manhattan, that it seems that it is America's -- at least America's literary -- living room. Of course one reason is that many writers live there, or have lived there, or have studied there. And it is, after all, the U. S. center for literature as it is for most arts. (Although many writers live here in San Francisco and surroundings, and there is an active literary scene here, as well as world-class opera, ballet, museums, theater, etc., I have to concede that New York is still the center.) But beyond that, it is a place that most novel readers know; whether or not they live in or regularly visit New York, they have read so many novels set there that they feel they know it. Readers feel we know that long thin borough, with Central Park a long vertical inside a vertical, through the top and middle, and with all the other familiar areas: the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side, Midtown, the Village, Chelsea, Harlem, Morningside Heights, etc., etc. We know Fifth Avenue, the Theater District, Columbus Circle, Times Square, Wall Street, Bryant Park, Rockefeller Center, and many more familiar landmarks. We know about yellow cabs, and doormen buildings, and all the cultural events at the Lincoln Center. We know about the Metropolitan Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Museum of Natural History. We are very familiar with the campuses of Columbia University and NYU. We know about Zabar's, Dean & Deluca, and Fairway, and we know you can get food delivered to your door from hundreds of restaurants. And we know about the amazing restaurants! So of course we feel comfortable when we pick up a novel set in Manhattan; for readers, it belongs to all of us!

A Smart, Witty, British Site on Books

I recently discovered the Guardian's book section website, http://www.guardian.co.uk/books. What a smart, witty, informative, provocative, and -- oh yes -- British site it is! I like it because it has that British viewpoint, that angle from across the Atlantic. I like it because its authors are witty and sharp. And I like it because it informs me about books from the UK and around the world that I may not have known about otherwise. As with the Booker Prize lists, which I posted about on 9/12/10, the Guardian site opens up my book world.

The Luxuriantly Dark and Moody Thoughts of Youth

When I was 21, I copied the following quote in a notebook; I just ran across it again. It is by Andre Gide, from "The Counterfeiters" (p. 297 in the edition I had at the time). He wrote, "In real life nothing is solved; everything continues. We remain in our uncertainty, and we shall remain to the very end without knowing what to make of things. In the meantime life goes on and on, the same as ever. And one gets resigned to that too, as one does to everything else...as one does to everything." I -- like many young people -- had periods of moodiness, uncertainty, and dramatic pronouncements about the "meaning of life" or lack thereof. I had my existentialist phase. I copied out passages such as the above. Although my feelings were real, there was a certain luxury -- a luxury of youth and obliviousness -- in being able to dwell in such dramatic despair. When I got older, I realized that (unless one has a very hard life, or is clinically depressed, and I do acknowledge that those situations are very different from my relatively easy life, and therefore what I say here may not apply to people in those situations), one should -- I should -- recognize that life is far too precious to waste it on making dark statements about the sameness, dullness, heaviness, meaninglessness of life. Now that I am much older, and much more aware of mortality, those youthful moods and thoughts seem self-indulgent. But I try to be understanding of my younger self, as I was part of a long tradition -- one that included such authors as Gide, Sartre, Hesse, et al -- of such youthful wallowing in unearned despair.

R.I.P. Vance Bourjaily

Do you remember the author Vance Bourjaily? He was quite well-known for his several novels in the years after World War II, especially for his novel about that war, "The End of My Life" (1947), which critic John W. Aldridge (n his 1951 critical study "After the Lost Generation") called "the most neglected but, in many ways, the most promising of the novels published soon after World War II." But for some reason his reputation didn't really catch fire or endure. He did have a distinguished career as a professor of creative writing, most notably at the revered University of Iowa writing program, where he taught for more than 20 years, influencing many many writers. I read a couple of his novels many years ago, and then more or less forgot about him. But when I opened the paper this morning and saw his name in large letters above his obituary, I immediately remembered reading him, and even remembered thinking that his name was very distinctive and rather dashing. The other surprise was finding that not only had he written for the San Francisco Chronicle at one period in his life, but also he had lived the last eight years of his life in San Rafael, California, just a few miles from where I live. Perhaps I have passed him on the street without realizing it...I lift a virtual glass to toast this writer's memory, and hope that his work will stay in print and be enjoyed by readers for years to come.

Unreliable Narrators

We all forget many of the specifics of lectures and discussions in school and college. But we also all experience educational moments that stand out and that we remember over the years. One of my such "aha" moments, one that has stuck with me these many years, occurred in a college class on the 19th Century British novel. We were discussing "Wuthering Heights," and the professor asked if we could always be sure the narrator of a novel was reliable, was telling the exact truth. I remember we all looked at him rather blankly, and finally he had to gently lead us to apprehend the idea that often authors would purposely create unreliable narrators whose viewpoints affected the way they told the story, even to the extent of -- consciously or unconsciously -- withholding or distorting the "truth." (Of course the question of whether there is any one "truth" is a huge one in academe, far too big to tackle here!) Our professor helped us see that Nelly Dean, the housekeeper who narrated much of the story in "Wuthering Heights," was limited in her knowledge, and also had an interest in presenting events a certain way. I remember this came to me as news; I guess I -- and apparently my classmates -- thought of the narrator as a sort of straightforward, unbiased conveyor of the events in a novel. Such a belief was obviously the product of youth and naivete. I thank my professor for that moment of being startled into questioning, of suddenly seeing literature in a new way.

A Male Writer on Bias Against Women Writers

I have occasionally addressed the issue of whether or not there is now equality of the genders in the world of literature, most recently on 8/26/10 (writing about A.S. Byatt's contention that smart women writers are not welcomed) and on 9/4/10 (writing on the assertion made by some women writers that the New York Times Book Section is a "Boys' Club"). Now a well-respected male writer who lives partly in India and partly in the UK, Pankaj Mishra, writing about American literature, states that "the ruthless regularity with which white women novelists along with short-story writers, poets and essayists are excluded from the canon of 'great American writers' (long after the writers so beatified ceased to be readable) ought to make us suspicious." (The reason he specifies "white" women is that he believes "stories of ethnic minorities assimilating into American society" -- presumably by women writers of color as well as men -- are respected by the literary establishment.) Mishra writes of being asked by a reader in India to make up a list of the best American literature, and of finding that he rejected many of the "great" male authors for his list. He says, "Much of the American fiction I chose – for its formal and political daring, and, yes, universal implications – turned out to have been authored by white women writers, many of them virtuosos of short fiction. My list included Mary McCarthy, Elizabeth Hardwick and Carson McCullers as well as such contemporary practitioners as Shirley Hazzard, Deborah Eisenberg, Jane Smiley, Lorrie Moore and Jennifer Egan" ("Pankaj Mishra on American Literature.” The Guardian, 9/11/10, http:www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/sep/11/).

The Romanticized Class-Based Image of Martha's Vineyard

On 9/10/10, I wrote about trying to hold onto to the last days of summer by reading novels with the word "summer" in the title. Such books are often set in waterside locations, and one favorite such location is Martha's Vineyard; both novels I mentioned in that earlier post were set there. A fair number of novels are set there; Anne Rivers Siddons' novel "Up Island" springs to mind, and there are a couple of mystery series with MV settings. Somehow Martha's Vineyard epitomizes carefree vacations, but in a different way than, say, Florida or Hawaii do. Probably the difference is that Martha's Vineyard is known for being a vacation place for the monied classes, so the romance of summer is combined with the fantasy of affluence, especially of "old money." Although many Americans hold onto the tattered illusion that the United States is a classless society, in reality we are all very aware of class distinctions, the financial aspects of which have grown rapidly in the past ten years, with the increasing income gap between the richest and poorest residents. So even the settings of novels reflect Americans' muddled feelings about class and money, and readers' fascination with America's version of "aristocracy."

Vanity Fair + Vanity Fair

I love reading the magazine "Vanity Fair." It is a sort of semi-guilty pleasure, as it has both articles on serious political and social issues, on the one hand, and articles on fashion, the social elite, the world of entertainment, and gossip, on the other hand. Recently I was thinking about connections between the magazine and Thackeray's wonderful 19th century novel, also titled "Vanity Fair." Both are bursting with fascinating content, and both are full of contrasts. Each of the two is both intellectual and worldly, both informational and entertaining. Each has a sort of wry, worldly tone. Each is about chic celebrities as well as the difficulties of war and poverty and sudden changes in people's lives. I think Thackeray, that supremely witty and worldly author, would have been very much at home in the editorial offices of the magazine "Vanity Fair."

The Man Booker Prize Shortlist

The Man Booker Prize is given annually to the best novel written in English by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland, and it is a very big deal in the UK and in other Commonwealth countries. Every year a committee chooses a "longlist" of 12 or 13 titles, and then a bit later narrows the list to a "shortlist" of six titles. The shortlist for 2010 has just been announced. The titles on that list are: "Parrot and Oliver in America," by Peter Carey (Australian-born); "Room," by Emma Donoghue (Irish-born, lives in Canada); "In a Strange Room," by Damot Galgut (South African); "The Finkler Question," by Howard Jacobson (English); "The Long Song," by Andrea Levy (Jamaican-born, English); and "C," by Tom McCarthy (English). I appreciate the Booker Prize lists because they provide a window into the best literature in English from around the world; this opens up my sense of connection to English literature beyond the books reviewed in The New York Times and other U.S. publications. Sometimes I have already heard of, and sometimes have read, the authors, sometimes not. I was happy to see Emma Donoghue's new novel on the list; readers of this blog may remember that I have written about three of her earlier books: "The Sealed Letter" on 7/20/10 and "Touchy Subjects" and "Landing" on 7/31/10. I very much admire and like her work, and look forward to reading the new novel when it arrives in the U.S. As for the other shortlisted writers, I have already requested "In a Strange Room," by Galgut, from my local library, and will look into checking out the other titles as well. The winner of this year's Booker Prize will be announced on October 12th; so far the favorites seem to be "Parrot and Oliver in America" and "Room." But just being on the short list, winner or not, is an honor and brings much recognition to the selected authors.

The Fraught Relationships of "Steps"

The stereotype of the cruel stepmother has been with us for centuries, maybe more. We all remember fairy tales and folk stories embodying that stereotype: "Hansel and Gretel" springs to mind. But of course the reality is, in most cases, far different. Most stepmothers want to love and take care of their husbands' children. But often, despite the best intentions, the situations are very difficult. The children may feel resentful of the stepmother, believing that she has separated their parents. Or they may feel disloyal to their mothers if they get along with their stepmothers. On 9/3/10 I wrote about Ayelet Waldman's novel "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits," in which the main character had a very difficult time establishing a relationship with her young stepson. I am now listening to a recording of "Other People's Children," by Joanna Trollope (Viking, 1999), which focuses, as the title suggests, on the very difficult "step" relationship, not only between stepmothers and stepchildren, but also among stepbrothers and sisters. There are several step relationships in this novel, and they are all fraught, to say the least. Josie has one set of adult stepchildren, one biological son, and now has taken on another set of stepchildren in their early teens. Both sets of stepchildren are deeply resentful, despite her very best efforts. Elizabeth is also taking on stepchildren, and in her case, interestingly, the problems are more with her adult stepdaughter than with her young stepson. Both of these stepmothers' relationships with the fathers of the children are threatened by the storms and tensions in the "step" relationship, as the fathers feel torn between their children and their wives. Both books remind us that the "evil stepmother" stereotype is very unfair, and that most stepmothers do their best in often extremely difficult situations.

Last Gasp of Summer Reading

Right now I have two books on my to-read pile with the word “summer” in the titles: "Summer House," by Nancy Thayer, and "Summer Sisters," by Judy Blume. Yes, that Judy Blume, but did you know she writes novels for adults as well as tweens and teens? Hmmm, could I be trying to hold on to the lovely flexibility and fun of summer? I am now three-plus weeks into my new semester, but apparently still caught up in remnants of the summer fantasy: vacations, beaches, summer houses, summer sisters, summer romances, summer friendships, summer drinks, summer books...can you say "chick lit"? As you might remember from my posts on 7/13/10 and on 9/4/10, I have been thinking about the term "chick lit," and how it demeans novels of interest to women. Yes, some of them are a bit lightweight (and that's OK; sometimes that's what one wants, just as sometimes one wants a mystery or other genre fiction), but they often also address issues of interest to women (AND men!). Besides, there are degrees of "chick lit"; some books with that label or in that general genre are quite intelligent and well-written, others not so much. I may or may not write about these particular books here, but just the titles remind me that, consciously or unconsciously, I am not yet ready to let go of summer...just for a little bit longer...

Fun for Foodies

For those who love restaurants, restaurant news, restaurant gossip, restaurant speculation, and more, there are many enjoyable blogs available. My favorite is by the San Francisco Chronicle food critic, Michael Bauer (http://insidescoopsf.sfgate.com/michaelbauer/). He addresses many interesting topics, including new restaurants, trends in food, tipping, service, restaurant design, what to do when there is a mistake in service, restaurant etiquette, etc. Even people who do not live in the San Francisco Bay Area will enjoy this blog. On the same site, Inside Scoop SF, there is another, more newsy/gossipy blog by Paolo Lucchesi, also fun to read. Another of my favorite sites -- restaurant news in a stylish, even snarky voice -- is Eater SF (http://sf.eater.com/); there are also Eater sites/blogs in various other cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

Today: International Literacy Day

"Today is International Literacy Day. It's a day designated by the United Nations, and it was first celebrated in 1966. The point is to make sure that literacy remains a high priority on the agendas of each country — and for the whole world at large. UNESCO points out, 'Today one in five adults is still not literate and two-thirds of them are women.' Literacy campaigns are now often linked to women's rights movements." (The Writer's Almanac, http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org, 9/8/10). The Writer's Almanac goes on to note that the United States ties for 21st place on the list of most-literate countries, a startling and sad statistic. For those of us fortunate enough to have a high level of education and literacy, it is important to support global and local efforts to promote literacy for everyone.

200 Blog Entries!

I can't quite believe that I have just posted the 200th entry on this blog! Thanks very much to those of you reading it, whether regularly or occasionally. And please do tell your reading friends about it.

Yet Another "Modern Day Austen"?

Author Allegra Goodman has been dubbed, as have far too many women writers, a "modern day Austen." Her new novel, "The Cookbook Collector," certainly embodies echoes of Austen; it is old-fashioned in the best sense, telling detailed, character-driven stories of family and the search for love. Her main characters are two sisters, Emily and Jess, who are reminiscent of sisters Elinor and Marianne in Austen's "Sense and Sensibility." Emily -- like Elinor -- is the calm, centered older sister; she is the CEO of a tech start-up company. Jess -- like Marianne -- is the more unfocused, more emotion-driven younger sister; she is a dropout from a Berkeley doctoral program in philosophy, a member of "Save the Trees," and a bookstore clerk. But this novel is very contemporary as well, being set in the midst of the tech world on the East Coast and in Silicon Valley. Featured are computer geniuses, start-up tech businesses, sudden multimillionaires, the rises and falls of the stock market, and the events of 9/11. The title alludes to another main character, George, who has made his fortune in technology, is a collector of rare books, and has discovered and acquired an amazing collection of antique cookbooks. The passages on the cookbooks, and on some memorable meals consumed by Goodman's characters, are lyrical and compelling. Goodman is a wonderful writer, and I admire her combination of the classic "big" nineteenth-century-style novel and contemporary topics. But I can't accept the comparison to Austen, not only because NO writer has risen to the level of Austen (I firmly believe that she is sui generis), but also because Goodman doesn't achieve Austen's acute understanding of her characters, nor Austen's delicate but pointed wit.

The New York Times Book Section a Boys' Club?

A Slate article (http://www.slate.com/id/2265910/) poses the question "Is the New York Times' book section really a boys' club?" ("Fact-Checking the Franzenfreude," 9/2/10). (Thanks, B., for drawing this article to my attention). The answer seems to be "yes." The article cites several studies showing that almost two-thirds of books reviewed in the NYT are by men. A related question discussed in the article is whether certain categories of books are gendered. For example, looking at genre fiction, the article notes that legal thrillers and science fiction, more often written by men, are more respected than "chick lit" and romance novels, almost always written by women. The writer Jennifer Weiner (whose recent novel, "Fly Away Home," I posted about on 8/11/10) wonders if Nick Hornby, Jonathan Tropper, and David Nicholls (whose novel "One Day" I posted about on 8/16/10) might be considered "chick lit" writers if they were women. I have read novels by all three of these writers, all of which could be classified as forms of domestic drama, so Weiner's point definitely resonates with me. This article is sobering, reminding us that although there are many women writing and publishing, this does not guarantee equal treatment of their work; it also reminds us that equal treatment is elusive, because bias is sometimes subtle, hard to pin down, and deeply rooted.

A Love Affair Between -- A Woman and a Park?

I seem to have become an Ayelet Waldman fan. On 7/18/10, I posted about her book on motherhood, "Bad Mother." On 7/28/10, I wrote about her novel "Red Hook Road." Now I have just finished listening (in my car, as usual) to the audio version of her novel "Love and Other Impossible Pursuits" (Random House, 2006; Books on Tape, 2006); I enjoyed it. It is set in New York; the main character, Emilia, is a Harvard-educated lawyer who is married to a man -- Jack, another lawyer -- with whom she fell head over heels in love, despite the fact that he was married when she met him. The couple suffers the tragic loss of their newborn child, and Emilia falls apart. She also has trouble with her role as stepmother to the young (ages 3-5 during the course of the novel), very precocious William, as well as with William's mother Carolyn, who is of course Jack's ex-wife. Emilia is both likable and maddening; she suffers, she is snarky, and she causes much drama, including screaming fights with various people, notably her father, whom she is still angry at because he divorced her mother a few years earlier. Emilia is a character who is so smart in so many ways, yet so blind about her relationships. I won't tell you how it all works out, but it is good reading. One aspect that sets this novel apart is Emilia's lifelong love affair with Central Park, which is not only the setting for many scenes in the novel, but a sort of main character as well. I enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the park; they weren't guidebook-like, but instead blended naturally into the storytelling.

Magazines That Question the Status Quo

The mainstream press in the U.S. is still woefully inadequate, and biased in favor of the status quo. Newspapers are better than radio and TV news, but still lacking. I am very grateful that there are magazines dedicated to giving readers a fuller and more critical (in the sense of not accepting official statements and representations at face value) coverage of national and world news. For this great service, I thank, commend, and recommend the following magazines, among others: In These Times, Mother Jones, Ms. Magazine, The Nation, The Progressive, The UTNE Reader, and Z Magazine. Most of these also have websites that give a sense of the types of articles published in the magazines.