Our columnist closes out his one-year run with his favorites of the year.
Books, Arts and Culture
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Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
Requiem for a Comedy Dream
Jason Reitman’s new film about the origins of ‘Saturday Night Live’ forces a consideration of how the show turned into comfort food for its scared, self-satisfied liberal audiences.
Posted inBooks
Palestine, Writing, and Everything Else
Ta-Nehisi Coates’s lovely little book on big, urgent matters
Posted inBooks
Cascading Shame
Arlie Russell Hochschild returns to study the motivations of the left-behind right.
Posted inBooks
It’s Good to Be the King
The ins and outs of how the mega-rich wall themselves off from government’s prying eyes
Posted inBooks
Chicago Public Schools—From Worst to (Almost) First
A system that used to be ridiculed has become a model for schools in other cities.
Posted inBooks
Red Weather Vanes
Maurice Isserman’s history of American communism documents both its achievements and its fatal obeisance to Soviet doctrines.