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Richard Farr
  • Jun 22, 2018

Charles Krauthammer and honesty

We are not supposed to speak ill of the dead – apparently, indeed, we are supposed to go on and on about how marvelous the dead were. And...
Richard Farr
  • May 1, 2018

Misplaced muddifiers – or, how to spell ‘hypocrite’ at the NYT

Biblical wisdom: before passing judgment on the specks in Supreme Court Justice Gorsuch’s writing, the New York Times should have...
Richard Farr
  • Apr 30, 2018

Societal utilization of too many syllables?

The letters page of this morning’s New York Times has several writers using the word “societal.” Or should I say “utilizing”? I’m not...
Richard Farr
  • Mar 29, 2018

Books for Writers: “How Fiction Works”

I’m re-reading the critic James Wood’s excellent, readable little book of this title. Every writer should have a copy. There’s a superb...
Unlike
Richard Farr
  • Mar 22, 2018

Unlike

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scanda l (an extraordinarily ugly story for the age of Trump), I have deleted my Facebook account....
Richard Farr
  • Feb 17, 2018

What are Britain anyway?

After Lizzy Yarnold’s gold medal in skeleton, The Grauniad claims it is the “first time Britain have won three medals in same day.” In my...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 29, 2018

Early Homo sapiens – we were wrong, again!

In the timeline at the end of Infinity’s Illusion, which isn’t even officially published until next week, I apologize slightly for...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 24, 2018

Trumpocracy

Choice is a great burden. The call to invent one’s life, and to do it continuously, can sound unendurable. Totalitarian regimes aim to...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 24, 2018

RIP Ursula Le Guin

Such brilliant titles! How can you not want to read a book called The Lathe of Heaven, or The Left Hand of Darkness? The stylistic and...
Richard Farr
  • Oct 30, 2017

“Do you have a favorite writer (for children)?”

Not just one  – but I’m happy to put in a plug for David Almond. Read beautiful Skellig. (Amazing, how he does so much with so little!)...
“Do you have a favorite writer?”
Richard Farr
  • Oct 20, 2017

“Do you have a favorite writer?”

I’ve read pretty much every word George Orwell ever put in print, much of it over and over, and there is no writer I would rather have...
Richard Farr
  • Oct 6, 2017

Ishiguro: yes yes yes

Filled with delight that Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Nobody could have deserved it more. But I suppose I’m...
Richard Farr
  • Sep 8, 2017

Old words for old things

Robert Macfarlane’s The Old Ways resurrects not only old ways – roads, paths, routes – but the old words you need to describe them. I...
Richard Farr
  • Sep 5, 2017

“Why not just write an outline?”

In the course of explaining why Angels in America is seven hours long, Tony Kushner offers a good insight into the myth of the nice...
Richard Farr
  • Jun 23, 2017

Pushing dimensions at the NYT

Once again I find my morning coffee interrupted by the desire to rewrite some odd English in the The Gray Lady of Record (Shifting...
Richard Farr
  • Jun 9, 2017

‘Lies’?

One of today’s New York Times headlines raises an interesting point for the word nerds among us. Comey …. accuses the White House of...
Keats on how to be a genius
Richard Farr
  • Apr 25, 2017

Keats on how to be a genius

Famously: It struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so...
Richard Farr
  • Jan 13, 2017

“What does the Babel Trilogy have to do with the ‘Hard Problem’?”

Quite a bit of The Babel Trilogy is about consciousness: what is it, and where does it come from, and how is it possible­—that’s what...
“Are you a quick reader?”
Richard Farr
  • Oct 13, 2016

“Are you a quick reader?”

On the contrary – when I was 17, I discovered the philosopher Wittgenstein … He tends to say things like “In propositions thoughts can be...
Edward Albee, 1928–2016
Richard Farr
  • Sep 18, 2016

Edward Albee, 1928–2016

A great talent. RIP. In 1996, I had the opportunity to interview him at his home in Manhattan. Along with my introduction, this is what...
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