Non-Fiction Reviews
The Union: England, Scotland And the Treaty of 1707 – by Michael Fry
May 20, 2026The story of modern Britain – at least one of the stories – begins some three...
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Truth About Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What To Do About It – by Marcia Angell
May 20, 2026When AstraZeneca was on the verge of losing its patent to manufacture exclusively the $6 billion...
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Uncivil War: Irregular Warfare in the Upper South 1861-1865 by Robert R. Mackey
May 20, 2026Army Major Robert R. Mackey, currently assigned to the Pentagon, has written a much-needed study of...
Fiction Reviews
The True Account: A Novel of the Lewis and Clark and Kinneson Expeditions by Howard Frank Mosher
May 20, 2026Enter Howard Frank Mosher and his delightfully picaresque novel THE TRUE ACCOUNT – A Novel of...
Fiction Reviews
The Translation of Dr. Apelles: A Love Story – by David Treuer
May 19, 2026The novel’s postmodernism is not its strongest or even its most salient feature; and comparing the...
Fiction Reviews
The Trade – By Shirley Palmer
May 19, 2026Matt Lowell is a character straight out of central casting for the Lifetime Network. He’s a...
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Conservative Bookshelf by Chilton Williamson, Jr.
May 19, 2026There is a small cadre of American writers whose gifts and talents are so significant that...
Horror
The Taking – by Dean Koontz
May 19, 2026Dean Koontz has always been a master of plot, dialogue, and description. His talents are such...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Stories From the Haunted South – by Alan Brown
May 19, 2026An old Cornish prayer that has become part of the American lexicon goes, “From goulies and...
Westerns
Stewball – by Peter Bowen
May 18, 2026I’ll begin by saying that I enjoyed immensely the first seven or eight novels in Peter...
Non-Fiction Reviews
September Swoon: Richie Allen, the ’64 Phillies, and Racial Integration by William C. Kashatus
May 18, 2026For Philadelphians over a certain age, the year 1964 evokes bitter memories of a Phillies team...
Fiction Reviews
Temping – by Kirby Olson
May 18, 2026Milhouse Moot, the narrator of Kirby Olson’s autobiographical comic-allegorical novel, is severely depersonalized, rendering the story...
Non-Fiction Reviews
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic – by Chalmers Johnson
May 18, 2026Back in 2008 the United States had what was called a “California style” referendum. Empire or...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East? by Ted Rall
May 18, 2026Who are the Stans? What are the Stans? Where are the Stans and what in the...
History
In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran – by Christopher de Bellaigue
May 17, 2026Americans would be well advised to learn about Iran’s culture and tragic recent history before our...
Fiction Reviews
Red – by Ted Dekker
May 17, 2026In Red, The Heroic Defense, Dekker’s brilliant utilization of Christian doctrine and pagan myth provides a...
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...
Crime Fiction
The Right Madness – by James Crumley
May 17, 2026No one else tells the stories like Crumley, has his voice, his confidence or absolute fearlessness...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Recovering the Past: A Historian’s Memoir by Forrest McDonald
May 17, 2026McDonald’s memoir is very good because Professor McDonald writes for those of us who delight in...
Nature
The Quiet Mountains – A Ten-Year Search for the Last Wild Trout of Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental – by Rex Johnson, Jr.
May 16, 2026One region I’ve always wanted to wander about in is Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, a...
Art & Design
Paul Bril’s Restored Paintings in the San Silvestro Chapel at Rome’s Sancta Sanctorum
August 10, 2026Born in Antwerp in 1554, Bril was working in Italy at the end of the century,...
Biography
In My Father’s Shadow by Chris Welles Feder
August 5, 2026Orson had become so famous for his villainous role as Harry Lime in The Third Man...
Art
Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
August 7, 2026The people of that ancient nation had been decimated in the opening genocide of modern times,...
Art
Francis Alÿs: Fabiola at the National Portrait Gallery, London
July 27, 2026Perhaps what fascinated him about these portraits was that they show this urge to create and...
Art
Tim Burton at MoMA
August 11, 2026Predictably, Tim Burton is already a wildly popular show. As throngs of families, film buffs and...
Movies
Movie Review: Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire
August 8, 2026Comedian Mo’Nique, best known for urban comedies like Phat Girlz and Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins, gives...
Non-Fiction Reviews
Abraham Lincoln: A Life by Michael Burlingame
August 3, 2026Never perhaps has there been such a masterful account of the man’s failures—and successes—in this country’s...
Art & Design
The Barnes Foundation: Beauty Surrounded by Controversy
August 1, 2026And what a treasure trove! By the time of his death in 1951, Barnes had purchased...
Fiction Reviews
Stitches: A Memoir by David Small
July 31, 2026But, as we see in the terrifying drawings of his radiologist father giving him neck adjustments—“kkrraackk,”...
Movies
Movie Review: The Lovely Bones
August 16, 2026The novel opens with a striking, abrupt proclamation: “My name is Salmon, like the fish; first...






