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Books

This photograph taken on Saturday, May 11, 2103, in Portland, Maine, shows the cover of former U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe's new book, which is being released Tuesday. Snowe's book is a call to action to end what she calls excessive partisanship in Congress.  (AP Photo/Clarke Canfield)

Ex-Sen. Snowe Presses for Bipartisanship

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Portland, Maine — U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe describes a scene out of a Rockwell painting: With Washington crippled by a blizzard, President Obama worked the week before Christmas with a fire roaring in the fireplace in the Oval Office. Outside the window, his daughters played in the snow with their dog. Inside, Snowe writes in a new book, she delivered sad news to the president, whom she described as gracious. The Maine Republican couldn’t support Obama’s health care overhaul because her ideas, solicited in more than a dozen calls and eight face-to-face meetings, were left out of the final bill. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid …

Rocker-Poet Patti Smith Introduces World to Forgotten Favorite Novel

Sunday, May 19, 2013

The Slate Book Review presents Patti Smith’s introduction to Astragal , the 1965 novel by Albertine Sarrazin, which is being reprinted this month by New Directions. New York — Perhaps it is wrong to speak of oneself while writing of another, but I truly wonder if I would have become as I am …

Gross National Product

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Whether you feast on truffles or Cheetos, the end result is the same. Defecation is the great leveler. There’s nothing more democratic or unpretentious than what happens in the confines of our commodes — as the children’s book reassures us, everybody poops. While we increasingly obsess over what we put in our mouth, …