Friday, August 02, 2013. Last Update: Fri 2:50 PM EST

Critical Eye

Memoirs of an Accidental Sportswriter

Robert Lipsyte’s new memoir recounts fifty years on the sports pages

An Accidental Sportswriter | by Robert Lipsyte | Ecco | 256 pages, $25.99 Robert Lipsyte’s An Accidental Sportswriter doesn’t leave... More

Tabloid City and the Contours of Emptiness

Pete Hamill’s new novel explores a city in decline

Tabloid City | by Pete Hamill | Little, Brown and Company | 288 pages, $26.99 In the opening pages of... More

Q&A: Calvin Trillin

“I think journalists make a mistake writing about more than one person at a time”

Trillin on Texas | by Calvin Trillin | University of Texas Press | 184 pages, $22.00 Last month, long-time New... More

Anatomy of a Journalist

Janet Malcolm dissects a murder trial, and her own profession

Iphigenia in Forest Hills: Anatomy of a Murder Trial | by Janet Malcolm | Yale University Press | 168 pages,... More

Out of Style

The writers of @FakeAPStylebook transfer Twitter to the printed page

Write More Good: An Absolutely Phony Guide | by The Bureau Chiefs | Three Rivers Press | 272 pages, $13.00... More

Babel

Robert Lane Greene on why language is always, and never, in decline

You Are What You Speak: Grammar Grouches, Language Laws, and the Politics of Identity | by Robert Lane Greene |... More

We Love the Eighties

David Sirota traces the outsized influence of the “Me Decade”

Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live in Now—Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Everything |... More

A Brief History of “Save Darfur”

The Darfur lobby was historic. But was it effective?

Fighting for Darfur: Public Action and the Struggle to Stop Genocide | by Rebecca Hamilton | Palgrave MacMillan | 272... More

Letter Perfect

Inside Elizabeth Bishop’s forty-year correspondence with The New Yorker

Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence edited by Joelle Biele | Farrar, Straus and Giroux | 496... More

Pretty Pictures, Hard Times

A look back at the illustrated magazines of the 1840s

Art for the Middle Classes: America's Illustrated Magazines of the 1840s by Cynthia Lee Patterson | University Press of Mississippi... More

The News from Norway

A comprehensive look at the history of the Norwegian American press

Norwegian Newspapers in America: Connecting Norway and the New Land by Odd S. Lovoll | MHS Press | 432 pages,... More

Playing Around

Ian Bogost and colleagues address the advantages and challenges of newsgames

Newsgames: Journalism at Play | By Ian Bogost, Simon Ferrari, and Bobby Schweizer | The MIT Press | 208 pages,... More

Copy Cat

Marcus Boon turns the culture of copying on its head

In Praise of Copying | By Marcus Boon | Harvard University Press | 304 pages, $25.95 In the mythology section... More

Number Cruncher

A new biography vindicates a forgotten innovator

The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer | By Jane Smiley | Doubleday |... More

Waiting for Substance

A high-profile documentary shortchanges the education debate

I sobbed alongside my graduate students as we watched the ending of Waiting for Superman, the heat-seeking documentary that has... More

Old TNR vs. New TNR

In one tweet

Luke Russert is the Golden Boy of DC

And it drives young journalists crazy

Oh, #Florida!

Why does Florida produce so much weird news? Experts explain

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Who Owns What

The Business of Digital Journalism

A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Study Guides

Questions and exercises for journalism students.