There's something about vagabonds that intrigues us. People who live on the edge of society, who eschew our modes of beauty and respectability, tend to draw the eye -- even if just in perverse speculation. In fiction, taking advantage of this can feel like a cheat, a conceit, if the...

History is a deep sea, and once you fall in it's easy to fall forever. Impossible questions will crowd your mind as you tumble -- how did it happen? Why did they do it? Is everything determined, or just intertwined?

Kamila Shamsie's new novel, Burnt Shadows (Picador, 2009), which...

What do you think about when you're alone in bed?

That question could easily be the beginning of several dirty jokes. But once you get past the middle school area of your brain--and on to the freshman psych portion--it opens up a field of rich personal information. What are...

Some people know themselves better than others. Vladimir Nabokov, in his writing if not in his life, was a man who knew exactly who he was. By creating word puzzles, inserting himself into his narratives, and possessing his characters with often bizarre and outrageous obsessions, Nabokov presented the world with...

It seems like every time I turn around, someone is bemoaning the slow death of yet another literary form. "Short stories are weakening!" and "The novel is in trouble!" are just two of the death knells I've heard recently. I read a fair number of book reviews, not to mention...