Allen Barra

Latest Readings

Clive James, the great cultural critic diagnosed with leukemia in 2010, revisits a lifetime of reading in his latest, and perhaps last book: “If you don’t know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do.”

Posted on Sep 4, 2015 READ MORE

Albert Camus: Past and Present

Camus remains the writer who always speaks to individuals, never to groups. He remains perpetually relevant without ever quite being fashionable.

Posted on Feb 13, 2015 READ MORE

Does ESPN Have Room for Free Speech and ‘Monday Night Football’?

Popular sports commentator Bill Simmons was suspended by ESPN for violating editorial standards—or was it because he criticized the NFL, which happens to have a $15 billion contract with the network?

Posted on Oct 16, 2014 READ MORE

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A Conversation With Garry Wills

Truthdig talks with the writer/historian about his new book, “Making Make-Believe Real,” which considers Shakespeare and the political power of poetry.

Posted on Aug 22, 2014 READ MORE

The Poems of François Villon

François Villon, the medieval French poet, was a champion of the underclass—street thugs, pimps, gamblers, petty criminals, prostitutes. No poet has ever written of the refuse of society with such compassion.

Posted on Jan 17, 2014 READ MORE

Happy Birthday, Hemingway!

Sunday would be Ernest Hemingway’s 114th birthday. More than anyone, he cleaned out the stuffy British conventions that clogged American writing in the 1920s and allowed the next generation to find their own voices.

Posted on Jul 18, 2013 READ MORE

Better Off Without ’Em

“It’s too bad that we just didn’t let the South secede when we had the chance,” Chuck Thompson writes.

Posted on Jul 2, 2013 READ MORE