Why liberal democracies could devolve into ’digital dictatorships’
Yuval Noah Harari also argues a Trump impeachment would be a ’disaster’—convincing a big chunk of the U.S. population to lose faith in the system
Books
Gary Shteyngart on why the free world is going to undemocratic hell
Shteyngart: ’All our elites suck! From the bankers to the software people to the politicians, obviously. It’s the greediest, most selfish group in the history of this country.’
Why ’shadow president’ Mike Pence badly wants the Oval Office
Michael D’Antonio and Peter Eisner argue Pence yearns for ’a vision of a white-washed past’—and has ’methodically pursued’ the presidency
Esi Edugyan on why readers can’t get tired of books about slavery
Canadian author Esi Edugyan: ’We have to be on guard against darker things. To not discuss them is to open up the potential for a blind spot or forgetting.’
Why the American empire has lost control—and its failure is imminent
Pretending the world isn’t bleak feeds the mania for unreal hope that exists within American culture, argues Chris Hedges
Why Patrick deWitt fell in love with his own character
’Everything feels like a surprise when you’re lost.’ DeWitt on the twists and turns his novels take as he puts pen to paper.
In ’Beirut Hellfire Society’, Rawi Hage returns to war
In his latest novel, the award-winning Hage revisits his birthplace in the midst of conflict
Miriam Toews takes on the dark side of Mennonite communities
Toews’s fictional account of Mennonite women’s response to a four-year rampage of sexual assault in a remote colony in Bolivia may be her finest work yet
Why people hooked on opioids, especially in the U.S., keep falling through the cracks
The author notes that the culture of pill-taking often takes hold in early life, when kids are prescribed drugs such as Adderall or Ritalin for ADHD
How Iain Reid made himself into a writer of philosophical suspense
Two novels by the Canadian author are set to get the deluxe film treatment—including a Netflix movie by Charlie Kaufman