Memory is a fickle aspect of our lives. Vibrant memories can provide a level of certainty to conceptions of self, but they also hold painful details that sour relationships and cement hatred. Amnesia can erase old resentments and bring enemies together. Does forgetfulness excise people’s true selves, or does it permit them to eclipse pasts…

After getting back from a week-long hiking trip in the Smoky Mountains last Friday, I sat around with some friends and discussed our respective spring breaks. The topic of reading for pleasure (something that looks to have been relegated to vacation time for most Georgetown students) came up after a couple of beers, and I…

I was a big reader during elementary school, which probably won’t surprise anyone, but I didn’t start out with a love for literature. The book that left the biggest impression on me as a child wasn’t Harry Potter or one of the many tomes in the Redwall fantasy series that I scarfed down like mad….

Sometimes, the bits that go nowhere are the most important ones. I’ve been reading Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I know, I know. I’m about seven years late to the Swedish murder-mystery party. I’m only two hundred pages in—not even close to where blood starts getting spilled and the going gets exciting—but…

In a slum surrounding Mumbai’s gleaming Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, hope springs eternal, at least when prices for a kilo of compressed plastic bags are high. Katherine Boo’s stunning nonfiction novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, pulls the curtains back from the façade of the “New India” of cellphones and Hyatt hotels. The India she knows…

Band reunions are often a bitter cash grab. As a die-hard Doolittle fan, it pains me to think of the Pixies’ whitebread post-2003 releases. The same goes for the latest incarnations of Sebadoh and even Neutral Milk Hotel. The greats of the ‘90s aren’t what they used to be. The Sleater-Kinney revival, however, strikes of…