Bookforum Vol 15,2 (Jufe-Aug 2008)

Bookforum is the most interesting of the American literary-political journals. Not as frequent as the New York Review of Books, but usually better. The latest issue (Vol 15,2) has a section on Fiction and Politics led off by an interesting and illminating survey by Morris Dickstein on 'Fiction and Political Fact' and there's also David Ulin on recent retrospectives of the '60s counterculture in `Go Start Anew'. Thee's also a series of shorter reflections.

It's all available on the web, but so well illustrated that I do recommend finding the print copy.

Other things of political interest in this issue include Kevin Mattson on the 'conservative takeover of American politics' that started in the '60s and Rick Perlstein on liberalism in the 1960s. There's Lawrence Hill on Civil War Slave Narratives. There's a good account of the relationship between Monica Ali's Brick Lane and the film by Sarah Gavron. Richard Wolin writes about a biography of Theodor Adorno. Hannah Bloch on a book about the Bin Ladens, which makes the case for no evidence formally linking Osama to the CIA during the Afghan War. Gus Russo is plainly disappointed by the conspiratorialism found in David Kaiser's book on the assassination of John F.Kennedy. Bryan Walsh writes about a biography of Joseph Needham by Simon Winchester. There's much more.