Book Review: Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow
September 21, 2025So if she wasn’t pleasant, what was Pauline Kael? She was earthy; she was tough; she...
Book Review: The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
September 19, 2025In this profound and spirited work, Pinker champions the civilizing process that, according to his detailed...
Book Review: Virginia Woolf by Alexandra Harris
September 12, 2025Woolf spent much of her life trying to free herself from the grasp of the past,...
Book Review: Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer
September 8, 2025Neumeyer responded with scholarly esprit, but he was hard put to equal his partner’s digressions. The...
Book Review: Carthage Must Be Destroyed by Richard Miles
September 3, 2025Carthage, however, was not merely conquered by Rome. As the title of Miles' book asserts, Carthage...
Book Review: René Blum and the Ballets Russes by Judith Chazin-Bennahum
August 23, 2025All of Blum’s many accomplishments were bracketed between the anti-Semitic turmoil of the Dreyfus Affair that...
Book Review: Beautiful & Pointless: A Guide to Modern Poetry by David Orr
August 20, 2025Except for a (thankfully) brief, unscientific use of Google metrics, Orr beautifully shares instances of why...
Book Review: Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class by Owen Jones
August 19, 2025But wherever it originated, the word conjures up an instant picture of young people in cheap...
Book Review: Mightier Than The Sword: Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the Battle for America by David S. Reynolds
August 14, 2025The escalating one-upmanship led to some truly bizarre innovations, such as casting famous boxers in the...
Book Review: Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx
August 12, 2025Place, in literature, is often the most complex of characters, boasting variable backdrops with tones and...




