No doubt David Grann’s utterly riveting Letter From Poland was the talk of the blogosphere when it appeared last month, but I only just rescued that issue of The New Yorker from the box of mail I packed up to move, and I spent an hour I couldn’t spare on this story about a brutal murder perpetrated in November 2000, . . .
Jessa Crispin makes me want to pick up Trespass, a look at fundie Mormons’ antipathy toward nature. (See also.)
The Smart Set is a weekly feature, compiled and posted by Lauren Cerand, that usually appears Mondays at 12:30 pm and highlights the best of the week to come. Special favor is given to New York’s independent booksellers and venues, and low-cost and free events. Please send details to Ms. Cerand at lauren [at] maudnewton.com by the Thursday prior to . . .
My review of Richard Price’s Lush Life appears in the Boston Globe’s books section this weekend. Here’s an excerpt: Luxury lofts have replaced flophouses. Haute cuisine has supplanted the soup kitchens. Post-Giuliani, Manhattan’s once-edgy Lower East Side seems like a Wi-Fi wonderland, a kind of theme park where, as writer Richard Price has observed, young would-be artists flit between coffee . . .