Roberto Abraham Scaruffi

New on nybooks.com: The second part of Marilynne Robinson’s conversation with President Obama, and Charles Glass on the Syrians’ brutal ordeal. Plus J. Hoberman on artist Jim Shaw, Elizabeth Drew on George W. Bush and September 11, Jenny Uglow on E.H. Shepard, and James Gleick on libraries. SPONSORED BY MCGILL-QUEENS UNIVERSITY PRESS

A Conversation in Iowa—Part Two President Obama & Marilynne Robinson Robinson: If I could strike one word out of the American vocabulary, it would be “competition.” I think that that is the most bogus thing— The President: Now, you’re talking to a guy who likes to play basketball and has been known to be a little competitive. But go ahead.   ADVERTISEMENT   In the Syrian Deadlands Charles Glass Folk memories endure, mothers’ and grandmothers’ sagas trumping documents in neglected archives. What will Syria’s youth, when they are old, tell their children?   Crackpot Gothic J. Hoberman Since he began exhibiting found “thrift store paintings” in 1991, Jim Shaw has created his own tradition, an American vernacular surrealism that might be termed “crackpot gothic.”   ADVERTISEMENT   The Big Bush Question Elizabeth Drew Though Jeb Bush set out to run for president with the line, “I am my own man,” he has discovered that being George W’s brother is quite a burden. What is arguable about the events of 9/11 is whether they could have been stopped; what isn’t arguable is that George W. Bush didn’t try.   A Charmer in the Trenches Jenny Uglow I had pigeonholed E.H. Shepard as the genius who illustrated Winnie-the-Pooh andThe Wind in the Willows. Yet in an intriguing exhibition, Shepard’s sketches show the mud and shells of the World War I trenches.   What Libraries Can (Still) Do James Gleick Of the many institutions suffering through the world’s metamorphosis from analog to digital (real to virtual, offline to online), few are as beleaguered as that bedrock of our culture, the public library.