Why Peter Rabbit’s creator deserves a get-out-of-jail-free card — Poor Beatrix Potter. Until recently, the creator of Peter Rabbit has avoided getting hauled into court by the academic police who patrol the literary highways, looking to arrest long-dead authors who violate cultural norms that didn’t exist in their day. But no more. A few months ago, a postcolonial studies…

Ronan Farrow shows why we needed the #MeToo movement in a book based on Pulitzer-winning stories — Harvey Weinstein was Hollywood’s apex predator, the man at the top of a food chain that sparked the #MeToo movement. He ate young women alive, figuratively speaking: actresses, employees, and others unlucky enough to cross his path during his long career as a producer and studio head. All of it…

A nasty Medium poet makes a cameo in ‘Yellowface.’ Could it have been inspired by real life? — A lot of stories on Medium mention novels, but have you ever seen Medium mentioned in a novel? I’ve reviewed countless books for major print and online media, and I hadn’t until I read R.F. Kuang’s Yellowface, a recent №1 New York Times bestseller. A self-righteous poet and performance artist…

What the hit novel ‘Yellowface’ gets right — and wrong — about authors, editors, and publishers who play dirty — What’s the easiest way to succeed as an author? A half dozen recent novels say: Steal. Lift someone’s plot, ideas, or — why not? — an entire book. It works — until you get caught, or the internet trolls come after you, or your life is threatened by a crazed…

How a leading psychologist demolished the idea that bragging is good for children — I used to take dance classes at an elementary school with a hallway dominated by a bulletin board that displayed hand-written papers on the topic, “I am fantastic because …” Students wrote them during the heyday of a costly and misguided educational fad: the idea that you could boost children’s…

Trendy programs waste taxpayers’ money and ignore the causes of problems at high schools like mine — My high school was — and still is — one of the worst in New Jersey. It ranks academically in the bottom 10% in the state, and when I attended, it was so overcrowded that we had split sessions for a while. Students brought guns to class in hollowed-out books…

It can be a red flag for editors — and with good reason — I had a standard test for aspiring critics when I edited the book section of a large newspaper. Send me links to your three best reviews, I’d say — one positive, one negative, and one mixed. The reason? I wanted to see that freelancers could be fair in any kind…

Find members — from Alabama to Wyoming — who’ll get your jokes and care whether your team won The Game — On Medium, life is more fun if you follow a few people from your state. These members will get your jokes, care whether the home team won The Game, and listen to the tornado or blizzard warnings you do. They may also share your taste for the local craft beer…

A preteen boy fights to stay alive after the New Orleans levees break in a new graphic novel — Not far from where I live stands a quarter-mile-long concrete pier that was torn up by Hurricane Katrina and rebuilt afterward. I walk its length nearly every week and have tried to imagine the power of winds and water that could do such damage. But I’ve never been quite able…