Citizenship | Literature
Select novels, short stories, and nonfiction on contemporary life.
What began as a bold experiment in grassroots service produced future ambassadors to help guide U.S. diplomacy through seven decades of global upheaval.
Read, Listen, Watch
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Kevin Spacey tells Stephen Colbert why House of Cards makes for better viewing than the drama issuing daily from the ‘real’ White House. “I do believe we have better writers.” Season five binge-watching begins May 30. “I have to say, I think we’ve never been more relevant.” Earlier thoughts on the House of Cards opening credits… Not just some anodyne tour…
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What are Trump & Co. reading as they wing their way to Saudi Arabia tonight? Two Pumps for the Body Man! This black comedy set in Saudi Arabia does for American diplomacy what Catch 22 did for military logic: The enemy in the War on Terror can’t kill us if our own institutions kill us…
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A few years back my son told me about his day in kindergarten: ‘We practiced the truder drill. It’s like the fire drill, only instead of going outside we go to the back of the room. The teacher locks the door and pulls the shade. We all keep quiet.’ His anecdote about a potential armed…
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Stephen King reviews Paul Theroux’s new novel, Mother Land at the New York Times this week (PeaceCorpsWorldwide brought it to my attention). King gives voice to the love-hate relationship so many readers have with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, novelist and travel writer, whose prolific career spans nearly six decades and whose vicious pen reaches the furthest places on the…
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Congrats to Vikram East today as he launches his debut novel, Fun in Ancient Greece. The book manages to do for homework what homework never did for books: make learning fun! The assignment? Convince the elementary school principal to take the third grade class to one of four civilizations: Rome, Greece, Egypt, or China. Fascinated by gods and warriors, Vikram…
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Revisiting Remarque before peace eludes My copy of All Quiet on the Western Front is a tattered thing. The cover, already coming apart in brittle pieces, fell off entirely as I read. It was appropriate to the fate of narrator Paul Baumer to see that cover come away. It is the father of all modern war…
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I just bought a dozen Cadbury Creme Eggs at nine cents apiece. $0.09! Now, to Malta! “I don’t buy eggs from Malta,” he confessed… “I buy them in Sicily at one cent apiece and transfer them to Malta secretly at four and a half cents apiece in order to get the price of eggs up…
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On Earth Day I pollute. On World Book Day I watch movies. If I list my favorites, it becomes clear that most actually started out as novels—even Cool Hand Luke (Donn Pearce, ’65) and Midnight Cowboy (James Leo Herlihy, same year). Easy Rider (’69) is the exception.
Ben East Books 