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Samantha Peale interviewed

Kurt Andersen talks with Samantha Peale, author of The American Painter Emma Dial, about creative passion & her work for celebrity artist Jeff Koons.

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Doomed love list at The Week

In honor of the appearance of Love is a Four-Letter Word,* The Week invited me to contribute this week’s “best books” list. It’s devoted to “doomed love,” and a reader says it’s available now. Instead of focusing on autobiographical stories, I chose first-person works of fiction** that (mostly) take the form of confessions: Lolita, Les Liaisons dangereuses, The Black Prince, . . .

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Skurnick on teen classics we never stopped reading

Shelf Discovery, inspired by my friend Lizzie Skurnick’s relentlessly entertaining Jezebel column, Fine Lines — “in which we give a sentimental, sometimes-critical, far more wizened look at the children’s and YA books we loved in our youth” — is just out. The book collects Lizzie’s insights on classics like The Long Secret, My Darling, My Hamburger, Jacob Have I Loved, . . .

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