Jonathan Franzen

Bad Milo! Will Meet Your Expectations of a Movie About Ass Demons

Birders: The Central Park Effect

LIT WITS

So what exactly is experimental fiction?

Rants and Other Suggestions With Jonathan Franzen, Gail Collins & More

Q&A: Jami Attenberg on Her New Novel, The Middlesteins -- and What Is or Isn't Feminist Writing

Plus, a few words about Brooklyn

Jonathan Franzen Hits the Stage

In House for Sale, Daniel Fish tries adapting one of the novelist's nonfiction pieces

House for Sale

HIGH NOON

Celebrate a new issue of NOON with Lauren Spohrer, James Yeh, and Deb Olin Unferth

SHYNESS IS NICE

Diane Williams reads from her latest collection

Jonathan Franzen Thinks E-books Are Evil

Today in "Traditionalists Hating Technology," local literary darling Jonathan Franzen, author of the popular novels Freedom and The Corrections, has come out in opposition of e-books. Speaking at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia, Franzen told reporters that he believes the impermanence of the ... More >>

Year of the Takeout: Day 25

​Oh no!

Jonathan Franzen Really, Really Loves Birds

​You know what Jonathan Franzen hates? The vacuousness of our modern techno-consumerism, and oh, how he hates his BlackBerry and yet loves its "marvelous clarity of its screen, the silky action of its track pad, the shocking speed of its responses, the beguiling elegance of its graphics." Sorr ... More >>

POWER OF WORDS

Celebrating why PEN is mightier than the sword

Breuckelen in Cobble Hill Does the King County Fare

They don't pet animals here—they eat 'em

10 Great Food Moments in Literature (Plus Dining Guide!)

Sarah DiGregorioTrade plot twists for the pretzel kind.​ Somewhere on a dusty chunk of earth bordered by two rivers, a king's BFF got shit-faced on beer, then started yelling at the hooker who was trying to ply him with alcohol. You might think this titillating bit marks the beginning of a Mid ... More >>

Cee Lo Green and the Year of "Fuck You"

Summing up 2010 in two little words

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

The Paris Review gets a makeover

BOOKSHAKALAKA: The National Book Awards Jam Throws Down for 2010

The 2010 National Book Awards at the Cipriani Wall Street ballroom. All the people who were at these tables are still hungover.​An unlikely ballroom of people in the troubled business of literature -- publishers, editors, writers, reporters, and respective sycophants -- gather yearly to ostens ... More >>

Are Creative Writing MFAs a "Ponzi Scheme"?

​A Master of Fine Arts in creative writing in America is a curious piece of paper, one that says something about the person holding it -- mostly, that they survived an MFA program without killing themselves, which apparently isn't easy -- and also, in some circles, acts as a certification that ... More >>

The Snooki Book, A Shore Thing, is Actually Happening

Click to Enlarge.An idea for the cover.​Dear Struggling Authors of America, please read the following around friends, family, or other people who can protect you from harming yourself. And Jonathan Franzen, look out. You think you wrote The Great American Novel? Think again. Star Jersey Shore ... More >>

NFL Kicks Off, Determines Future of 3-D TV

​Though the NFL season officially started on Thursday, today is the day you will lose your fathers/husbands/boyfriends/Sunday yoga partners for the remainer of the year and then some. Fantasy football is the new Jonathan Franzen. It's all happening. But leave it to the New York Times to find a ... More >>

The Cure for Burn-A-Koran Day Is Here: Burn-A-Freedom

Click to Enlarge.Via Chris Mohney.​Chris Mohney -- the "Vice President of Content" at BlackBook Media [and full disclosure: my former "boss"] has proposed a way to fight Koran-Burning pastors in the press. He writes: "There's only one way to combat International Burn a Koran Day, and that's by ... More >>

Breaking: Koran-Burning Pastor Terry Jones Cancels Koran-Burning in Exchange for Reported Promise to Move 'Ground Zero Mosque'

​Damien Cave, the New York Times' Miami bureau chief, has just Tweeted out that at a press conference, the potential Koran-Burning Pastor Terry Jones of Florida has decided to cancel his Koran-burning. He supposedly got a promise from the Feisel Abdul Rauf, the imam behind Park 51 (AKA the "Gr ... More >>

FULL STEAM AHEAD

Hop aboard the Franzen train

The Decade's Best Books

Join us as we leaf through the finest the publishing world had to offer

David Foster Wallace's Reading List

Perhaps you'd be intrigued by an incomplete but still pretty comprehensive list of every book David Foster Wallace ever blurbed, mentioned in an interview, or taught in a classroom? Writers plugged include Paula Fox, Jonathan Franzen, David Markson, Evan Dara, and Cormac McCarthy, about whose Blood ... More >>

This Week's Voice: Neil Young, Marnie Stern, Jonathan Franzen, Benjamin Button, and More

Interview: Jonathan Franzen on New York City

Lit Seen: Jonathan Franzen Charts the Decline and Fall of New York

A monthly literary column

Interview: State By State's Matt Weiland

STATES OF THE UNION

Writers on the land that they love

Dirty Blonde: Book Eaters, CMJ, and Studio B's Demise

That infamous festival is back, though chicks may happily dominate this year

Thurston Moore, Ian MacKaye, Jonathan Lethem Head Up Brooklyn Book Festival

America's Next Top Supernovel

Granta once again takes bets on the nation's young literary talent

The Recognitions

A portrait of the novelist as a young smartypants emerges in Jonathan Franzen's latest essays

Can We Replace Congress With Politically Minded Authors?

Written With Invisible Ink

Is Nicole Krauss's book-within-a-book 'taut as a drum'?

PEN Pals: Literary Celebration Promotes Multiculturalism

Rumsfeld, Circa A.D. 2034: One Who Stomachs Casualties

The Names

Burning Bush

Rushdie Rocks A Reading, Maestro Bumps The Quad, Tapis Rouge Goes Gay

Beating around the Bush: Writers get the word out on voting

Bookstores

Tomes, Sweet Tomes

The Complications

Joseph McElroy's Uncompromising Positions

A Hard Sell

Letters

The Connections

Perchance to Screen

Our 25 Favorite Books of 2001

The Lit Parade

Family Man

Follow the Reader

Around the Word in 90 Days