Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

Sunday reading on nybooks.com: Saul Bellow’s Ravelstein, the cost of ignoring America’s child poverty crisis, the weird world of Piero di Cosimo, the consequences of Netanyahu’s victory, efforts to restrict the vote, and how images shape our knowledge of outer space.   SPONSORED BY MCGILL-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS

Saul Bellow After Death Gary Shteyngart Much of contemporary fiction has slimmed down, become more performative, single-minded, and direct. Portnoy’s Complaint, ahead of its time, can almost be sung aloud. But Saul Bellow’s novels are digressive, dripping with intellectual and physical life simultaneously.   ADVERTISEMENT   The Cost of Child Poverty Jeff Madrick The US has a higher proportion of children in poverty than any other developed country except Romania. It also is the only major developed country that does not provide cash allowances to poor children.   Piero le Fou Anthony Grafton Piero di Cosimo produced some of the most handsome and dignified religious paintings of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. But he also crafted startlingly vivid portraits and strangely evocative images of religious objects.   ADVERTISEMENT   Bibi: The Hidden Consequences of His Victory David Shulman The Israeli electorate has given a clear mandate for policies that preclude any possibility of moving toward a settlement and that will further deepen Israel’s colonial venture in the Palestinian territories, probably irreversibly.   Big Dangers for the Next Election Elizabeth Drew The three dangers are voting restrictions, redistricting, and loose rules on large amounts of money being spent to influence voters. In recent years, we’ve been moving further and further away from a truly democratic election system.   Revelations from Outer Space Priyamvada Natarajan Astronomy is a science that relies on images. Unlike other branches of science, no controlled experiments can be performed on the heavens. Therefore, observations are the closest that astronomy gets to actual experiments.   FILM J. Hoberman: The idea that J. Edgar Hoover hated Sam Fuller’s insanely slangy, deliriously hard-boiled Pickup on South Street only makes the movie more enjoyable(Film Forum, New York)   ART Geoffrey Wheatcroft: Paul Durand-Ruel inherited his father’s trade as a Paris art dealer just as one of the greatest eras in French—or European—artistic history was about to begin (National Gallery, London)