Non-Fiction Reviews
A Place for Three Seasons: Crested Butte
June 14, 2026Let us be clear on one thing: physically fit people tend to get more out of...
Environment
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
June 14, 2026The North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, informally known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is a span...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Notes From Italy: Some Old Envoys
June 13, 2026Counts who stank of garlic–as did the whole country–had sponged on him for seats in his...
Fiction Reviews
City of Fire By Robert Ellis
June 13, 2026There are red herrings aplenty, but once finished reading the novel I’m left with a sense...
Fiction Reviews
The Headmaster’s Dilemma by Louis Auchincloss
June 13, 2026There is another criticism that Auchincloss has had to counter in his long and illustrious career...
Fiction Reviews
Gentlemen and Players
June 13, 2026Yet it is the amateur, the eccentric and the outsider who plays the hero in the...
Military
The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson
June 12, 2026This long, well documented book by Rick Atkinson is one of the best accounts of any...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Notes From Italy: The Oversized Embassy
June 12, 2026Nor, it seems, do Americans get out of their diplomatic fortress the way they used to....
Fiction Reviews
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
June 12, 2026There is also something conversational about the way he writes, a straightforwardness, and a beguiling, gentle...
Fiction Reviews
Exit Ghost by Philip Roth
June 12, 2026Though the notorious Roth voice is often manic and crude, we assume that coming from a...
Thrillers
Trashed by Alison Gaylin
June 11, 2026These driven individuals scour celebrity garbage cans, pose as anyone but themselves, lie as though the...
Fiction Reviews
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
June 11, 2026This book isn’t a book, it’s a jazz piece, a series of improvisations on Díaz’s country,...
Non-Fiction Reviews
What is intelligence? by James R. Flynn
June 11, 2026‘The Flynn Effect’ was the phrase Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray coined in their book...
Fiction Reviews
The Quiet Girl by Peter Høeg
June 11, 2026A thriller is often a race, but without the understanding of exactly why this girl is...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Crossing Styx
June 10, 2026What happens to children is that they usually pass from believing that everything presented by television...
Fiction Reviews
Mike Carey: Novelist and Comic Writer
June 10, 2026"People too content with their lot make lousy protagonists. (laughs) There has to be a source...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Notes from Italy: Romulus and Neighbors
June 10, 2026The next time you go to Rome, take a half-day to go to Pomezia, just south...
Historical Fiction
The Snake Stone by Jason Goodwin
June 10, 2026Goodwin now returns with another mystery, a tale as exotic as the first one, delicious in...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Almost a Miracle by John Ferling
June 9, 2026As contemplated by Ferling, few, if any, colonial Americans escaped the impact of hostilities. Wars were...
Military
Images from How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb
June 9, 2026Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted over 300 atmospheric nuclear tests above the ground,...
Fiction Reviews
No Man’s Dog: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery – by Jon A. Jackson
May 15, 2026In No Man’s Dog Jon Jackson weaves a curious juxtaposition between his long-time hero “Fang” Mulheisen,...
Fiction Reviews
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
June 11, 2026This book isn’t a book, it’s a jazz piece, a series of improvisations on Díaz’s country,...
Military
Images from How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb
June 9, 2026Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted over 300 atmospheric nuclear tests above the ground,...
Fiction Reviews
William Gibson: The Father of Cyberpunk
June 7, 2026"The part of me that walks around and does interviews is incapable of doing very much...
Religion
What The Buddha Taught by Walpola Rahula
May 22, 2026What The Buddha Taught accurately describes itself as a reliable introduction to Buddhism. As a religion...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Gen·e·sis: The Scientific Quest for Life’s Origin by Robert M. Hazen
May 23, 2026In all the recent noise over the higher steps of evolution and the proper way to...
Fiction Reviews
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
May 26, 2026I read this book in one take late at night and immediately headed downstairs to kick...
Non-Fiction Reviews
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon
June 7, 2026I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead is sort of an extended wake for its subject. There’s very...
Science
Michael Behe on The Edge of Evolution
June 7, 2026"I conclude that Darwinian processes account for little of the machinery of life, and that most...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means – by William T. Vollmann
May 17, 2026With the exceptions of several of his earlier works, every time I take on a book...
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