July/August 2008

As the English-speaking world's most famous playwright, William Shakespeare wields a tremendous influence over popular culture, even four centuries after his death. Two new novels, published within a month of each other, bring Hamlet into sharper contemporary focus—and they could not be more different.

Citizen journalists, often blogging in real time, have forced an expansion of creative nonfiction by influencing public opinion on important issues such as the presidential campaign.

This installment of Page One features excerpts from All About Lulu by Jonathan Evinson and Awesome by Jack Pendarvis.

While it's safe to say the twenty-first century has so far not been a great time for American diplomacy, a handful of new poetry anthologies, from Norton, Dalkey Archive Press, North Atlantic Books, and Graywolf Press, offer proof that American poetic diplomacy might be entering a new golden age.

Small Press Points highlights the happenings of the small press players. This issue features Dzanc Books, OV Books, Black Lawrence Press, Siglio Press, and Coffee House Press.

Literary MagNet chronicles the start-ups and closures, successes and failures, anniversaries and accolades, changes of editorship and special issues—in short, the news and trends—of literary magazines in America. This issue's MagNet features the Southern Review, the Florida Review, the Ontario Review, and Volt.

Jane Ciabattari, president of the National Books Critic Circle, discusses the art of book reviewing and her recommendations for summer reading.

The latest documentary film about Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson, coming to theaters this month, features rare home videos, film clips, and interviews with Johnny Depp, Pat Buchanan, Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Buffet, George McGovern, and others.

Joshua Bodwell explores the fiction behind this “writer’s writer” whose characters are as deep and complex as the man who created them.