 The Problem With Boys I have two sons. One is sixteen, the other thirteen. Like any boys, they are a little too muscular in their expectations from life. In a single evening, they can be sullen, sweet, hurtful, gentle, distant, funny, and full of grit. Tonight I dropped the younger one at soccer practice dressed all in yellow. Yellow sweatshirt, yellow jersey, yellow shorts, yellow kneesocks. "I just wish I had yellow shoes," he told me when he got out. "That would be the topper."
Both spend hours watching reruns of Jackass. One likes shooting baskets; the other likes watching anime. One goes to summer camp; the other doesn't. Lately, they both have begun to talk about bands that I have never heard of. They murmur to each other so that I am just out of earshot.
They want their laundry done for them. They never clear their dishes or make their beds. They love their grandparents, but they never send them thank-you notes. They both still expect me to kiss them goodnight. They are boys.
They know I am writing this article. I've been wanting to write it for years. Here's what I tell them: I'm a little worried about boys.   The 50 Best Fantasy Books of All Time Fantasy is the oldest genre of literature, pre-dating the invention of bound books by thousands of years thanks to mythology and folklore. Yet even now, readers and critics can't always agree on what fantasy is and what it isn't. For some, ancient poetry like Beowulf, The Odyssey, and The Epic of Gilgamesh is fair game. For others, the modern genre for adults began with George MacDonald's Phantastes in 1858, the story of a thirsty 21-year-old who wakes up in Fairy Land and falls in love with a marble statue sculpted by Pygmalion. We ranked the 50 best fantasy books ever written, emphasizing works that brought something new and innovative to the genre—titles that inspired other fantasy writers as well as readers. In ranked order, here are the best fantasy books of all time.
 Is Putin Crazy? Or Did He Just Get Some Bad Intel? Even among the experts, Russia's invasion of Ukraine came as a surprise. Vladimir Putin seemed to be getting a lot of what he wanted out of the situation, like breaking off the eastern territories of the Donbas, without crossing the border—and with it, what turned out to be a major line in contemporary geopolitics. It was such a clear mistake so early on that some began to speculate that he was losing it a bit, that a man who for so long had operated on cool—if often barbaric—calculation was now behaving rashly on the world stage. As his forces began shelling a nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, the chatter only grew that maybe the guy who controls nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads had gone a bit sideways.  "My Own Little Fiefdom": Why Some Famous Novelists Are All About Substack When George Saunders went out to his writing shed to start a Substack newsletter last fall, for the first time in a long time, the Booker Prize-winning novelist, famous for such works as Lincoln in the Bardo and Tenth of December, didn't know what he was doing. "I'll just write 80 posts and then take a vacation," he thought to himself. But upon hitting publish, something surprised him: the comments section exploded, with thousands of readers chiming in on his inaugural post (that still-growing comment count currently sits at 3091). Everywhere from Scotland to India to Australia, devoted followers and aspiring writers wrote in with passionate messages, eager to connect with one of their literary heroes. Suddenly "don't read the comments," that old digital age chestnut, felt like the worst advice in the world. There was nowhere else Saunders would rather be than here, chopping it up with commenters young and old, near and far, longtime fans and first-time callers.
 The Best Movies of 2022 (So Far) Right now, while all eyes are focused on the holdover movies from 2021 that are in the running for this year's Oscars, the Hollywood Industrial Complex hasn't shut down completely. Even in the usually slow, early months of 2022, there's still been a handful of new releases that are well worth checking out, like After Yang, a capital A piece of art from director Kogonada, or Jackass Forever, which is certainly the best version of whatever you'll call it.  Men Who Are Good With Their Hands When I was sixteen and the chain broke on my bike and I fell off and skinned my knee, Duke picked me up and took out a link so that the chain was tight. He had bulging muscles and a thick neck. He was also sixteen. The root-beer-colored grease covered his hands so that his skin shone like india ink. His fingernails were yellow. The next day, he walked me home from school the long way, through Windfall Woods. We brushed bushes away from our faces as we strayed from the path. It was so hot and moist the mosquitoes landed on our bare arms ten deep. I rubbed my hands up and down my arms to busy them away. Then Duke stopped as if he were waiting for a light to change. My heart pounded like someone was beating drums. He walked up to me, opened his fingers like two fans, and slid them around the small of my back. Then he kissed me. It was the softest, sweetest, juiciest kiss I'd ever had in my life. It was the first kiss I'd ever had in my life.
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Sunday, March 13, 2022
The Problem With Boys
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