Ever since we came to the States, my mom has been folding intricate little paper stars around the holidays. They're a traditional Polish ornament that doesn't seem to exist in the U.S. (although ominously Martha Stewart has taken an interest); for some reason even the paper strips you need aren't available in the right weight. But this year she has brought back a bunch of them with her from Pol…

With everyone drunk on the nectar of National Novel Writing Month, I thought I'd mix it up a little and spend November working on a translation instead. The book I've chosen is Ilf and Petrov's The Golden Calf, and I'll post more about it here in a few days. However, I urgently need help from native speakers on a handful of baffling words and phrases that are proving resistant to attacks by Goo…

One of the terrors of dating is Milan Kundera, and specifically, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, the sexually-transmitted book that this Czech-born author has inflicted on a generation of American youth.

I fully recognize the important role of the dating book, that is, the carefully selected work you lend a prospective lover someti…

Yesterday's Washington Post ran an enigmatic article about secret, extralegal CIA prisons, including the tantalizing mention of prisons in "eastern european democracies". Washington Post reporter Dana Priest knows the specific countries in question, but the paper is refusing to divulge the names a…

Yesterday's Washington Post ran an enigmatic article about secret, extralegal CIA prisons, including the tantalizing mention of prisons in "eastern european democracies". Washington Post reporter Dana Priest knows the specific countries in question, but the paper is refusing to divulge the names a…