It's often the case that the most strained moments in books are the very beginning and the very end - the getting in and the getting out. The ending, especially: it's awkward, as if the writer doesn't know when the book is over and nervously says it all again.

The Iron Curtain may be a thing of the past, but Mother Russia is as mysterious as ever.

Almost the first thing you see after entering the Houdini exhibition at the Jewish Museum is a large-screen film of Harry Houdini hanging by his ankles upside-down from a tall building, high over a sea of men in fedoras, and thrashing his way out of a straitjacket.

Gelsey Kirkland has had more than her share of demons, as her two distressing memoirs - and her violently checkered career - attest.

Peace as a goal is an ideal which will not be contested by any government or nation, not even the most belligerent.

The short story can't really hold an interesting event. It can't hold a death or a war or a loss of great magnitude the way either a long story or a novel can.

The one thing about my life that's different from others is that I wake up for no one, and for some reason, that's just good for your creativity.

With all of its defects, the global market makes war less likely, even between the U.S.A. and China.