The ascension of Vladimir Putin—a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB—to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years—as America and the world’s...
In this exuberantly praised book — a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a...