Maureen Corrigan

Guest commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews a new book critical of the college entrance exam, administered by the company ETS. ETS also developed the subject-specific Advanced Placement tests, which Corrigan graded for three years.

Guest commentator Maureen Corrigan reviews Writing Red, an anthology of women's writing from the 1930s which brings to light the often overlooked experience of working class women during that decade.

Guest critic Maureen Corrigan revisits Bel Kaufman's autobiographical novel Up the Down Staircase, about a rookie high school teacher who must contend with limited institutional support. Corrigan herself is a college instructor, and believes many of Kaufman's insights still ring true twenty years later

Book critic Maureen Corrigan reflects on the literary legacy of the hard-boiled novelist, who was born one hundred years ago. She says Chandler's writing had an existentialist bent, and that Chandler may have been dismayed by the recent crop of politically-minded mystery novels, which feature gay and women detectives.

Critic Maureen Corrigan reviews books by Wayne C. Booth and Robert Coles, writers who, while offering different solutions, both believe that the teaching of literature deserves a greater place in colleges and universities.

Maureen Corrigan has regularly read the Sunday New York Times wedding announcements. She says the kind of information that's printed -- and the kinds of couples who are highlighted might say as much about the paper's editorial slant as much as it does the current state of marriage.

Book critic Maureen Corrigan is no fan of minimalist literature, which she derides for its familiar, navel-gazing themes. By contrast, she admires T. Coraghesson's expansive, political, and historical fiction. Unfortunately, his approach is better suited to the novel, rather than the short stories in his latest collection, If the River Was Whiskey.

Maureen Corrigan reviews the new novel by feminist author Marge Piercy. The book focuses on a love triangle between a woman and a married couple, as well as the nature of art, and living in Cape Cod year round.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan explains why she hates summer festivals, be they music, ethnic, food, or whatever.

Commentator Maureen Corrigan looks back at Ex-Wife a 1929 novel by Ursula Parrott that has recently been re-printed. Corrigan finds many of the issues of contemporary feminism wrapped up in this story of a flapper who tries an "open" marriage.