Grandfather Rod Stewart, the rocker, happy at last.

If you're an intellectual, you need a substantial book collection, preferably at a cost that will leave you with a few extra dollars for food. Here's how to build one.

He was neither the first nor last intellectual jailed for heretical writings, and in some respects he proved lucky: Governments and other powers have a longstanding habit of killing thinkers whose ideas threaten the status quo.

Vidal had no self-doubt. He used his legendary intellect in the service of opinions that drew blood. Feuds thrilled him. And he never lost the swagger that comes from knowing that -- at least in his youth -- he was a stunner. Want a guided tour?

Quoting William Shakespeare is a little like breathing: every living person does it. "He's dead as a doornail," your roommate will say as she flips through the newspaper obits, never realizing she's just quoted part of a couplet from Henry VI.

Reading Susan Braudy's vivid remembrance of Joe Heller made me recall the time I had the opportunity to interview him in conversation with Kurt Vonnegut. Just how did I get this dynamic duo together for a chat with a tape recorder by my side?

Star-studded seminars aren't the only things Barth fondly recalls, nor are they even the most violent, playfully or otherwise. In fact, an episode at SUNY/Buffalo almost got our man mauled not by a literary lion -- but by the authorities.

What is there to say about true-crime books? They're fun. They can be intellectually compelling, and, like the fictional variety from Hammett, Cain and that crowd, they're more often than not rooted in the far side of respectability or polite society.

How does a woman, an American woman born in mid-century, write a memoir? The chutzpah and femmechismo needed to undertake the project go against the apron.

Last month, The New York Times ran a slideshow of Norman Mailer's Brooklyn Heights apartment, which will be up for sale shortly. This got us thinking ...

Artists obviously appreciate aesthetics, and it appears writers do as well. All of the following authors, from Norman Mailer to Salman Rushdie, have (...

I met Norman Mailer years ago in Provincetown, Massachusetts, at a small barbecue outside my friend's home. Over a feast of ribs and baked beans is not how I envisioned meeting this American icon.

Stereotypically, artists are stormy, temperamental, and moody. These literary figures feed the stereotype with their classic feuds. We asked readers...