We are not supposed to speak ill of the dead – apparently, indeed, we are supposed to go on and on about how marvelous the dead were. And...

Biblical wisdom: before passing judgment on the specks in Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch’s writing, the New York Times should have...

The letters page of this morning’s New York Times has several writers using the word “societal.” Or should I say “utilizing”? I’m not...

I’m re-reading the critic James Wood’s excellent, readable little book of this title. Every writer should have a copy. There’s a superb...

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scanda l (an extraordinarily ugly story for the age of Trump), I have deleted my Facebook account....

After Lizzy Yarnold’s gold medal in skeleton, The Grauniad claims it is the “first time Britain have won three medals in same day.” In my...

In the timeline at the end of Infinity’s Illusion, which isn’t even officially published until next week, I apologize slightly for...

Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable. Totalitarian regimes aim to...

Such brilliant titles! How can you not want to read a book called The Lathe of Heaven, or The Left Hand of Darkness? The stylistic and...

Not just one  – but I’m happy to put in a plug for David Almond. Read beautiful Skellig. (Amazing, how he does so much with so little!)...

I’ve read pretty much every word George Orwell ever put in print, much of it over and over, and there is no writer I would rather have...

Filled with delight that Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nobody could have deserved it more. But I suppose I’m...

Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways resurrects not only old ways – roads, paths, routes – but the old words you need to describe them. I...

In the course of explaining why Angels in America is seven hours long, Tony Kushner offers a good insight into the myth of the nice...

Once again I find my morning coffee interrupted by the desire to rewrite some odd English in the The Gray Lady of Record (Shifting...

One of today’s New York Times headlines raises an interesting point for the word nerds among us. Comey …. accuses the White House of...

Famously: It struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so...

Quite a bit of The Babel Trilogy is about consciousness: what is it, and where does it come from, and how is it possible­—that’s what...

On the contrary – when I was 17, I discovered the philosopher Wittgenstein … He tends to say things like “In propositions thoughts can be...

A great talent. RIP. In 1996, I had the opportunity to interview him at his home in Manhattan. Along with my introduction, this is what...