Author of the week
Samantha Power
The golden girl of America’s liberal foreign policy elite didn’t take long to bounce back from the “most bruising” setback of her charmed career, said Cara Buckley in The New York Times. Just two weeks ago, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Samantha Power abruptly resigned from her senior advisory role in Barack Obama’s campaign after attracting controversy by referring to Hillary Clinton as “a monster” in a newspaper interview. But the 37-year-old Harvard professor and expert on genocide hasn’t gone into hiding. She has a new book to promote—a biography of the late United Nations envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello called Chasing the Flame. And she’s carrying on with her U.S. book tour, she says, because Vieira de Mello’s legacy shouldn’t suffer because of her mistake.
Adjusting to life as a political embarrassment hasn’t been easy. Honoring a commitment to speak in New York last week, she told a university audience that if she got through her talk without crying, “it would be a first” since she became front-page news. She later said that her controversial remark about Clinton was “inexcusable”; she actually holds Obama’s rival in very high regard. Power’s real sin, said Gideon Rachman in the Financial Times, was that she was “too open for her own good” whenever she spoke to reporters. Only time will tell if she’s learned her lesson. Her plans following the book tour, she says, are to “keep writing and doing my best.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Why ghost guns are so easy to make — and so dangerous
The Explainer Untraceable, DIY firearms are a growing public health and safety hazard
By David Faris Published
-
The Week contest: Swift stimulus
Puzzles and Quizzes
By The Week US Published
-
'It's hard to resist a sweet deal on a good car'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
Also of interest...in picture books for grown-ups
feature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
By The Week Staff Last updated
-
Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”
By The Week Staff Last updated