Charles Simic: “I don’t know of anything more disheartening than the sight of a shut down library” May 18, 2011: Writing for The New York Review of Books, Charles Simic looks out across the depressing cultural landscape as libraries close from coast to coast. It's not just the state and local budgets to blame — it's the indifference. This isn't unique to libraries, as Simic notes, but it hits especially hard when the institutions on the chopping block are [...] by Harriet Staff

Roberto Bolaño steals this book March 28, 2011: The New York Review of Books features an essay from the collection Between Parentheses: Essays, Articles and Speeches (1998–2003) by Roberto Bolaño and translated by Natasha Wimmer. Bolaño describes the books he stole as a teenager in Mexico City, tempted first by the impossibility of stealing from an all-glass bookstore without being caught. [...] by Harriet Staff