With his works consistently nominated for "Best Book" honors on subjects ranging from the occult to the scientific study of chaos, William Sleator has become a popular sci-fi author for young-adults. "Everybody in my family is a scientist except me. I al...

A popular and prolific writer of fiction for children and young adults, William Sleator is regarded as a particularly original and imaginative author whose works use the genres of fantasy, mystery, and science fiction to explore personal relationships an...

Inventor/entrepreneur Ray Kurzweil has become the high-tech version of the cartoon character carrying the sign: "The End Is Near." With dogged consistency, the founder of eight different technology companies has been proselytizing an end-of-humantime event called the Singularity, a Buck Rogers vision of the...

The British novelist and essayist Brigid Brophy considered masturbation an invaluable spur to the imagination, pointing out that masturbation fantasy was the nearest most people got to the invention of narrative fiction. She would certainly have approved of Singular Pleasures, Harry Mathews' stirring...

Mark Grotjahn’s large abstract drawings are so meticulously crafted and striking in effect that, looking at them, I wonder why they don’t excite me more. The pieces are all handsome and, in their own way, masterful. I feel a twinge of guilt for not loving...

Do you know what I think are the most beautiful words in the English language—certainly in the language of that great, lost invention, the all-American musical? Right! Let’s do the whole combination, facing away from the mirror. From the top, A...