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Our May 8 issue is out, featuring Hermione Lee on John Updike, Nathaniel Rich on Walter Kirn, Wendy Doniger on freedom of speech, Anka Muhlstein on Stefan Zweig, and more. On the NYRblog, Garry Wills takes on the cult of Obamacare haters, and Christopher Caroll listens to the catalog of Charles Mingus, born on this day in 1922.
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Hermione Lee
Updike is the artist of middleness, ordinariness, in-betweenness, who famously wanted “to give the mundane its beautiful due.” For over half a century he transformed everyday America into lavishly eloquent and observant language. This is his great signature tune.
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Nathaniel Rich
Walter Kirn’s Blood Will Out is a fascinating tale of two con artists circling each other—a lower-stakes replay of a trope familiar from film noir and even screwball comedy. But who really is being conned here?
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Wendy Doniger
It’s hard to imagine how you could write about any subject as sensitive as religion or history without outraging someone. Anynew idea offends people who are committed to the old idea, which is to say, most people.
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Anka Muhlstein
Thomas Mann wrote to a friend, of Stefan Zweig’s suicide in Brazil: “He should never have granted the Nazis this triumph, and had he had a more powerful hatred and contempt for them, he would never have done it.” Why had Zweig been unable to rebuild his life?
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Also in the May 8 issue: Paul Krugman on inequality, Vladimir Sorokin on Vladimir Putin, Mark Danner on Dick Cheney, and reviews of new books by Allan Gurganus and Joyce Carol Oates.
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Garry Wills
Obamacare is now, for many, haloed with hate, to be fought against with all one’s life. Retaining certitude about its essential evil is a matter of self-respect, honor for one’s allies in the cause, and loathing for one’s opponents. It is a religious commitment.
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Christopher Carroll
The bassist, composer, and bandleader was notoriously mercurial. His reactions to noisy crowds ranged from announcing “Isaac Stern doesn’t have to put up with this shit” to ordering his band to read books onstage.
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