The Londoner

With network television production at a halt, striking writers are producing video for the Web. But Torie Bosch found that the results have been underwhelming so far.

Nabokov wanted his final, unfinished work destroyed. Should his son get out the matches? By Ron Rosenbaum Posted Wednesday, Jan. 16, 2008, at 6:18 PM ET -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here is your chance to weigh in on one of the most troubling dilemmas in contemporary literary culture. I know I'm hopelessly conflicted about it. It's the question of whether the last unpublished work of Vladimir Nabokov, which is now reposing unread in a Swiss bank vault, should be destroyed—as Nabokov explicitly requested before he died. It's a decision that has fallen to his sole surviving heir (and translator), Dmitri Nabokov, now 73. Dmitri has been torn for years between his father's unequivocal request and the demands of the literary world to view the final fragment of his father's genius, a manuscript known as The Original of Laura. Should Dmitri defy his father's wishes for the sake of "posterity"? For

Hollywood star Tom Cruise has appeared in a leaked video extolling the virtues of Scientology. The nine-minute tape shown on YouTube contains a series of pronouncements. We have edited together a selection.

By CLARE McHUGH January 16, 2008 A cursory description of Geraldine Brooks's "People of the Book" (Viking, 384 pages, $25.95) might make the novel sound like a distaff, Jewish version of "The Da Vinci Code." That's because Ms. Brooks, who won the Pulitzer Prize for her last novel, "March" (2005), has now produced a historical mystery starring a strong-willed heroine determined to ferret out the truth about a valuable medieval Hebrew manuscript nearly lost and then found again in war-torn Bosnia. In reality, "People of the Book" is of much more substance than Dan Brown's overwrought, silly, and ultimately distasteful thriller could ever hope to be — yet Ms. Brooks's work is just as entertaining. She has accomplished something remarkable, fashioning a story that is compelling and eminently readable, even as she maintains high intentions and an earnest purpose. As it follows the imagined journey of the Sarajevo Haggadah, an illuminat

Charlie Wilson’s War It was very funny and looked the best out of all the war movies which have been released in last two years. Charlie Wilson’s war was a movie which reminded us of why we are in a mess in Afghanistan and around the world and what is the cost of leaving wars unfinished by not rehabilitating the battleground countries. A beautiful cinematic piece which has discussed a subject very close to my heart and it reminded me why Pakistan had to create a monster like Taliban to clean up the mess left by Soviets and following civil war in the country of Afghanistan. It will take many years for world to undo the mistakes made in the immediate aftermath of Soviet retreat but it will serve us well to learn the lessons and do not repeat out mistakes.

Jean-Luc Godard (French pronounced [ʒɑ̃lyk gɔˈdaʀ]) (born 3 December 1930) is a French filmmaker and one of the most influential members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave". Born to Franco-Swiss parents in Paris, he was educated in Nyon, Switzerland, later studying at the Lycée Rohmer, and the Sorbonne in Paris, where he studied ethnology. During his time at the Sorbonne, he became involved with the young group of filmmakers and film theorists that gave birth to the New Wave. Known for stylistic implementations that challenged, at their focus, the conventions of Hollywood cinema, he became universally recognized as the most audacious and radical of the New Wave filmmakers. He adopted a position in filmmaking that was unambiguously political. His work reflected a fervent knowledge of film history, a comprehensive understanding of existential and Marxist philosophy, and a scholarly disposition that placed him as the lone filmmaker among the public intellectuals of the R