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Meet The Hummus, A Fake News Site for Muslim-Americans
This week, I produced an interview with the anonymous founders of The Hummus on The Takeaway, and then blogged about their project for On the Media. The story’s gotten a lot of pick-up; after PRI...
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Back to Back
I reviewed Julia Franck’s Back to Back for Words Without Borders. German Book Prize-winning novelist Julia Franck’s most recent work, Back to Back, is an extremely difficult book to read. This is not...
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Hot Reads: The Race Underground, Praying Drunk, Bark
The most recent installment of Hot Reads features new books from Doug Most, Kyle Minor and Lorrie Moore. Full reviews at The Daily Beast.
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Hot Reads: Blood Will Out, The Fishing Fleet, Rebel Music
A little bit of everything in this week’s all-star line-up– grifters, gold-diggers, and Kool and the Gang. As usual, full reviews at The Daily Beast. Bonus: Hear Hisham Aidi talking about Rebel Music...
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Everyone’s A Critic
But not everyone gets profiled by their alumni magazine! I was incredibly flattered to be interviewed by the brilliant Molly Minturn for the most recent issue of Virginia Magazine. I’ve got some...
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Kitty Genovese: How a Famous Murder Helped Create the 911 System
On a bracingly cold morning this March– exactly 50 years to the day after Kitty Genovese’s death– author Kevin Cook and I met on the block in Kew Gardens where Genovese spent her last living hours....
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This Is Where: Poems about Places that Matter
For National Poetry Month, in April I produced a series of stories on The Takeaway highlighting poems submitted by listeners around the country. The project grew out of the #ThisIsWhere poetry contest...
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Introducing The Takeaway Book Club
Exciting things are happening with The Takeaway’s book coverage in the coming months. We’ll be picking six book clubs from different parts of the country and bringing them on air to discuss a new...
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Takeaway Book Club Preview: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
Hear me explain why the new Joshua Ferris novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour, made me floss– and why it’s already started divided The Takeaway’s offices. If you haven’t read it, now’s the perfect...
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Hot Reads: Lobster Kings, Gottland, The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair
This week’s Daily Beast Hot Reads feature lobstermen and meth dealers off the coast of Maine, a Swiss best-seller’s and the world’s largest statue of Stalin. Check out my full reviews and stay tuned...
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Brooklyn Bound: Writing Kings County
Mark your calendars for September 18th! I’m thrilled to be hosting an interactive discussion on literature, identity, and geography at the Brooklyn Museum in a special WNYC Brooklyn Book Festival...
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A Night at the Brooklyn Museum
Thank you to everyone who came out to the Brooklyn Museum for a night of conversation with Yelena Akhtiorskaya (Panic in a Suitcase), Jason Reynolds (When I Was the Greatest), Mark Chiusano (Marine...
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Books of 2014: My Favorites
Every year feels like a ‘busy year,’ but this year felt like an especially busy ‘busy year.’ And although I read less this year than I did last year or the year before, I read more deliberately. I...
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Hot Reads: God’ll Cut You Down, Something Rich and Strange, Limbo
New reviews for The Daily Beast! Check out my takes on new books about a white supremacist’s murder in Mississippi, hardscrabble homesteaders in Appalachian North Carolina, and a female Iraq War...
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Ten books you don’t want to miss
It really is hard to just pick ten favorite books of the year. I revised my earlier list for PRI. A few new picks, here.
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“I Like Calling Myself a Thief”: An Interview with Rabih Alameddine
I recently sat down with Lebanese author Rabih Alameddine to ask him, among other things, why he wished me blue hair when he signed my copy of An Unnecessary Woman at a reading at the Asian American...
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‘Preparation for the Next Life’ in Flushing, Queens
I wandered around the Flushing Mall with Atticus Lish (author of the brilliant novel Preparation for the Next Life) for a story that aired on WNYC this morning. You’ve got to read this book!
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Hot Reads: Outline, The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Almost Famous Women
Hot Reads for cold, cold days. Over at The Daily Beast I reviewed Rachel Cusk’s enigmatic new novel Outline, plus an imaginative collection of stories from Megan Mayhew Bergman and an entertaining...
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The Steve Jobs of the Renaissance: Meet The Man Who Set Books Free
I was on The Takeaway on Monday talking about Renaissance publishing innovator Aldus Manutius and why technophiles like Robin Sloan consider him the Steve Jobs of his era. Manutius, who died in 1515,...
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The Upstairs Wife
My review of The Upstairs Wife: An Intimate History of Pakistan ran in this weekend’s New York Times Book Review.
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