“This is a work of criticism. If it were literary criticism, everyone would immediately understand the underlying purpose is positive. A critic of literature examines a work, analyzing its features, evaluating its qualities, seeking a deeper appreciation that might be useful to other readers of the same text. In a similar way, critics of music, […]

I came to language only late and only peculiarly. I grew up in a household where the only books were the telephone book and some coloring books. Magazines, though, were called books, but only one magazine ever came into the house, a now-long-gone photographic general-interest weekly commandingly named Look. Words in this household were not […]

This week, Jason and Fitz write about two authors who shaped their ambitions (and perhaps their styles) as writers, David Foster Wallace and John Updike.