Nathan Smith

Trace, Going Postal, A Girl’s Guide to Personal Hygiene

The New York Times‘ chief book critic is a polarising figure, but her writing has taken on a new dimension in response to the Trump era. Chief book critic for the New York Times, Michiko Kakutani is a titan of America’s literary community. Not only is she one of the longest serving book critics writing for an […]

The New York Review of Books is a publication both iconic and revered. Its publishing arm is changing the literary landscape by rediscovering writers whose work was thought lost. The New York Review of Books is regarded as the paragon of book criticism. For writers and publishers, it is the most sought after space for […]

Most essays on Joan Didion are expected to quote her. Indeed most essays on Didion are encouraged to emulate her enviable and uncomplicated voice. Didion’s terse, intensely specific sentences and undiluted appetite for metaphor are almost inimitable. While this essay will avoid adopting the succinctness of Didion, one cannot help but be drawn into admiring […]