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3mins
Anne Lamott embraces her reputation as a popular novelist, but admits that she sometimes gets caught up in the pretentious side of her profession.
4mins
A story of meditation, black coffee, and Safeway cakes.
4mins
Anne Lamott used to seek inspiration in "drugs, alcohol, and poetry." But writing her novels has always been more like arduous manual labor than an ecstatic high.
5mins
Creating fictional people that seem real requires, among other things, writing a final draft in which you "take out all the lies."
4mins
Some social problems are too complex to attack in a 1,500-word editorial.
2mins
"The difference between a writer who toughs it out and one who doesn’t is that you push through the parts where you know that you’ve just written seven pages when […]
"It’s obvious to anybody that the mind does much more than solve problems," Yale computer scientist David Gelernter says in his Big Think interview. "But in a more fundamental way, […]
2mins
The 21st century economy will evolve from a U.S.-dominated landscape to a "multiple power" system whose success will hinge on cooperation, not competition.
3mins
With competitive local search companies waiting in the wings, will Chinese users really mourn Google's absence?
2mins
The financial meltdown caught China off guard—and may make the country hesitate to follow Japan and other East Asian neighbors into full-fledged capitalism.
4mins
Will China’s future economic success hinge on its willingness to democratize? Or will U.S. debt make the country a superpower sooner than we think?
2mins
"There’s no point in going into a field like English literature unless you’re going to have fun with it."
2mins
The Harvard critic recalls feeling genuinely anxious about how things would turn out for the hero of "The Magic Mountain."
4mins
China is becoming progressively more open and entrepreneurial, but Western corporations shouldn’t assume they can export their traditional business models there.
2mins
Creative writing programs have left a dominant stamp on American literature in recent decades. The Harvard professor is glad they’re around.
3mins
Louis Menand recalls the most vehement reactions his essays have ever gotten—including one from a reader who didn’t realize Menand agreed with him.
19mins
A conversation with Booz & Company’s Chairman for Greater China.
2mins
Louis Menand isn’t sure the cognitive science approach to literature has yielded much of interest so far, but thinks there may be "some surprises around the corner."
2mins
Not on purpose, says the "Marketplace of Ideas" author. But the system is starting to hurt them nonetheless.