Amanda Katz
Amanda Katz is the deputy editor of the Ideas section of the Boston Globe. She has written about books for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian, among other publications. Previously, she was an editor of fiction and nonfiction at Bloomsbury USA, in New York. She holds an MFA in poetry from Brown University and has translated a number of books from French.
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Amazon is expanding its top 100 lists to rank writers, not just books. The new list features a funky mix of authors, from big names to children's classics to Ayn Rand. Essayist Amanda Katz wonders whether the list is silly, useful, a play for world domination, or possibly all three? -
Commentator Amanda Katz muses on some seriously unbeachy beach book choices, from the guy in a Palm Springs pool reading a book on string theory, to the woman curled up on the lounge chair with William Styron's memoir of depression, Darkness Visible. -
An old copy of The War of the Worlds, once belonging to rocket scientist Robert Goddard, prompts essayist Amanda Katz to muse on what we lose when we stop reading — and passing along — physical books. -
A baby is snatched away by goblins in Maurice Sendak's unsettling children's book, Outside Over There. Commentator Amanda Katz says she loved this book as a child, and only later understood why it made adults so uncomfortable. -
Sky looking a little slatchy to you? Want another helping of slang-jang? The final volume of the Dictionary of American Regional English, a 50-year project to document English across the U.S., is a treasure trove of history and local color.
