Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements, & Lists 2025-02 Apr-June
This topic was continued by Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements, & Lists 2025-03 July-Sept.
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1featherbear
This is a continuation of the topic: Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements, & Lists 2025-01 Jan-March
Indexes
April 2025 >2 featherbear:
May 2025 >63 featherbear:
June 2025 >130 featherbear:
Deaths
Pope Francis >46 featherbear:
Edward Anders >189 featherbear:
Richard Bernstein >14 featherbear:
Susan Brownmiller >114 featherbear:
Walter Brueggemann >185 featherbear:
Francis Davis >42 featherbear:
Karen Durbin >49 featherbear:
Leslie Epstein >133 featherbear:
Stanley Fischer >163 featherbear:
Frederick Forsyth >166 featherbear:
Alexandra Fröhlich >55 featherbear:
Herbert Gans >48 featherbear:
Jane Gardam >60 featherbear:
David Horowitz >73 featherbear:
Jesse Kornbluth >21 featherbear:
William Langewiesche >184 featherbear:
Peter Lovesey >57 featherbear:
Mario Vargas Llosa >32 featherbear:
Alasdair MacIntyre >143 featherbear:
Tim Mohr >39 featherbear:
V.Y. (Valentin-Yves) Mudimbe >72 featherbear:
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o >123 featherbear:
Alice Notley >160 featherbear:
Joseph Nye Jr. >85 featherbear:
Edmund White >147 featherbear:
Leonard Zeskind >52 featherbear:
Indexes
April 2025 >2 featherbear:
May 2025 >63 featherbear:
June 2025 >130 featherbear:
Deaths
Pope Francis >46 featherbear:
Edward Anders >189 featherbear:
Richard Bernstein >14 featherbear:
Susan Brownmiller >114 featherbear:
Walter Brueggemann >185 featherbear:
Francis Davis >42 featherbear:
Karen Durbin >49 featherbear:
Leslie Epstein >133 featherbear:
Stanley Fischer >163 featherbear:
Frederick Forsyth >166 featherbear:
Alexandra Fröhlich >55 featherbear:
Herbert Gans >48 featherbear:
Jane Gardam >60 featherbear:
David Horowitz >73 featherbear:
Jesse Kornbluth >21 featherbear:
William Langewiesche >184 featherbear:
Peter Lovesey >57 featherbear:
Mario Vargas Llosa >32 featherbear:
Alasdair MacIntyre >143 featherbear:
Tim Mohr >39 featherbear:
V.Y. (Valentin-Yves) Mudimbe >72 featherbear:
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o >123 featherbear:
Alice Notley >160 featherbear:
Joseph Nye Jr. >85 featherbear:
Edmund White >147 featherbear:
Leonard Zeskind >52 featherbear:
2featherbear
Index April 2025 (May Index >63 featherbear:)
Aeon >47 featherbear:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
Boston Review >40 featherbear:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
fivebooks.com >12 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
JSTOR Daily >11 featherbear:
LARB >4 featherbear:
Literary Review >5 featherbear:
LitHub >27 featherbear:
New Criterion >28 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYRB Apr 10 >3 featherbear: Apr 24 >23 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
Quillette >29 featherbear:
ThePoint >165 featherbear:
TLS Apr 4 >13 featherbear: Apr 11 >26 featherbear: Apr 18 >37 featherbear: Apr 25 >50 featherbear:
The Verge >33 featherbear:
WaPo March >10 featherbear: April >18 featherbear:
Washington Monthly >8 featherbear: (late March posting)
Yale Review >34 featherbear:
Aeon >47 featherbear:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
Boston Review >40 featherbear:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
fivebooks.com >12 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
JSTOR Daily >11 featherbear:
LARB >4 featherbear:
Literary Review >5 featherbear:
LitHub >27 featherbear:
New Criterion >28 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYRB Apr 10 >3 featherbear: Apr 24 >23 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
Quillette >29 featherbear:
ThePoint >165 featherbear:
TLS Apr 4 >13 featherbear: Apr 11 >26 featherbear: Apr 18 >37 featherbear: Apr 25 >50 featherbear:
The Verge >33 featherbear:
WaPo March >10 featherbear: April >18 featherbear:
Washington Monthly >8 featherbear: (late March posting)
Yale Review >34 featherbear:
3featherbear
NYRB Online April 10 2025
Literature
Dan Rockmore. The Quantum Chaos of Literature. Review of: The MANIAC / Benjamín Labatut -- When We Cease to Understand the World / Benjamín Labatut, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West.
Natasha Wimmer. Rigorous Innocence. Review of: A Question of Belonging / Hebe Uhart, translated from the Spanish by Anna Vilner, with an introduction by Mariana Enríquez.
Cathleen Schine. Ungovernable, Capricious Life. Review of: Shattered: a memoir / Hanif Kureishi.
Arts
Michael Gorra. Lost in the Landscape. Review of: Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, February 8–May 11, 2025. Catalog of the exhibition edited by Alison Hokanson and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, with essays by Joseph Leo Koerner and Cordula Grewe -- Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age, an exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, December 15, 2023–April 1, 2024. Catalog of the exhibition edited by Markus Bertsch and Johannes Grave -- The Magic of Silence: Caspar David Friedrich’s Journey Through Time / Florian Illies, translated from the German by Tony Crawford.
Geoffrey O'Brien. Living Wide. Review of: Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties: The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television / Foster Hirsch.
Adam Thirlwell. Rotten in Denmark. Review of The Kingdom, a television series directed by Lars von Trier. ("Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom is a soap opera about a hospital where the doctors aren’t good-looking or vibrating with noble sentiment but generally corrupt or insane.")
Science & Technology
Jonathan Mingle. Planet Ooze. Review of: The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance / Dan Egan.
Howard W. French. Toffler in China. (Article: "The work of the eclectic American futurist exerted a profound and unanticipated influence on China’s digital transformation since the 1980s.")
Religion
Miri Rubin. Christian Hair. Review of: Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism / Magda Teter.
History, Politics, & Society
Wendy Doniger. The Rise and Fall of Warhorses. Review of: Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires / David Chaffetz.
Christian Caryl. How Germany Remade Itself. Review of: After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany / Michael H. Kater -- Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022 / Frank Trentmann.
Brenda Wineapple. Peaceable Revolutions. Review of: Seven Social Movements That Changed America / Linda Gordon.
Christopher R. Browning. Trump, Antisemitism & Academia. (Article)
Literature
Dan Rockmore. The Quantum Chaos of Literature. Review of: The MANIAC / Benjamín Labatut -- When We Cease to Understand the World / Benjamín Labatut, translated from the Spanish by Adrian Nathan West.
Natasha Wimmer. Rigorous Innocence. Review of: A Question of Belonging / Hebe Uhart, translated from the Spanish by Anna Vilner, with an introduction by Mariana Enríquez.
Cathleen Schine. Ungovernable, Capricious Life. Review of: Shattered: a memoir / Hanif Kureishi.
Arts
Michael Gorra. Lost in the Landscape. Review of: Caspar David Friedrich: The Soul of Nature, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, February 8–May 11, 2025. Catalog of the exhibition edited by Alison Hokanson and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein, with essays by Joseph Leo Koerner and Cordula Grewe -- Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age, an exhibition at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, December 15, 2023–April 1, 2024. Catalog of the exhibition edited by Markus Bertsch and Johannes Grave -- The Magic of Silence: Caspar David Friedrich’s Journey Through Time / Florian Illies, translated from the German by Tony Crawford.
Geoffrey O'Brien. Living Wide. Review of: Hollywood and the Movies of the Fifties: The Collapse of the Studio System, the Thrill of Cinerama, and the Invasion of the Ultimate Body Snatcher—Television / Foster Hirsch.
Adam Thirlwell. Rotten in Denmark. Review of The Kingdom, a television series directed by Lars von Trier. ("Lars von Trier’s The Kingdom is a soap opera about a hospital where the doctors aren’t good-looking or vibrating with noble sentiment but generally corrupt or insane.")
Science & Technology
Jonathan Mingle. Planet Ooze. Review of: The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance / Dan Egan.
Howard W. French. Toffler in China. (Article: "The work of the eclectic American futurist exerted a profound and unanticipated influence on China’s digital transformation since the 1980s.")
Religion
Miri Rubin. Christian Hair. Review of: Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism / Magda Teter.
History, Politics, & Society
Wendy Doniger. The Rise and Fall of Warhorses. Review of: Raiders, Rulers, and Traders: The Horse and the Rise of Empires / David Chaffetz.
Christian Caryl. How Germany Remade Itself. Review of: After the Nazis: The Story of Culture in West Germany / Michael H. Kater -- Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022 / Frank Trentmann.
Brenda Wineapple. Peaceable Revolutions. Review of: Seven Social Movements That Changed America / Linda Gordon.
Christopher R. Browning. Trump, Antisemitism & Academia. (Article)
4featherbear
LARB April 2025
Anabelle Johnston. 04/01/2025: The Metaphors Sustain. Review of: The Place of Shells / Mai Ishizawa. Translated by Polly Barton.
Sarah MacEachern. 04/01/2025: At the Point of the Sword, Magic. Review of: Covert Joy: Selected Stories / Clarice Lispector. Translated by Katrina Dodson.
Nick Owchar. 04/02/2025: Jesus in the Fun House. Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Claire Messud. 04/02/2025: In Its Purest Form. "Claire Messud reads “Lolita” on its 70th anniversary, in an essay from the LARB Quarterly, issue no. 44, “Pressure.”
Ajay K. Mehrotra. 04/03/2025: Recovering the Forgotten Past of Black Legal Lives. Review of: Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights / Dylan C. Penningroth.
Leland de la Durantaye. 04/06/2025: Whose Voices Are These?. Review of: Parade / Rachel Cusk.
Grace Linden. 04/07/2025: The Unsettled Self. Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Luke Messac. 04/14/2025: Medicine and Lucre. Review of: No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson / Gardiner Harris -- Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Values of Medicine / Victor Roy -- Grow and Hide: The History of America’s Health Care State / Colleen M. Grogan.
Michael Knapp. 04/19/2025: Points of Confluence. Review of: The Voices of Adriana / Elvira Navarro. Translated by Christina MacSweeney.
Jesse Lau. 04/21/2025: “We’re All Chinese, Aren’t We?” Review of: Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China / Emily Feng.
Esther Allen. 04/23/2025: Gulf of América. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Ieva Jusionyte. 04/23/2025: The Dialectic Lurking Behind the Brutality. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Ian Ellison. 04/26/2025: Modernity’s Slumber Factory. Review of: Sleep Works: Experiments in Science and Literature, 1899–1929 / Sebastian P. Klinger.
Maddalena Pol. 04/27/2025: Premodern Chinese Literature Can Be Trendy Too. Regarding "the new series from Oxford University Press, Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature."
Alix Ohlin. 04/28/2025: Savage Meritocracies. Review of: Never Let Me Go Twentieth Anniversary Edition / Kazuo Ishiguro.
Jackie Snow. 04/29/2025: Reading Behind Bars, and Beyond Barriers. "Jackie Snow reflects on what working for a books-to-prisons nonprofit has taught her about reading."
Tim Brinkhof. 04/29/2025: The World of Yesterday, Today. Revisiting The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European / Stefan Zweig. "the relevance of Stefan Zweig’s 1942 autobiography for our own authoritarian times."
Anabelle Johnston. 04/01/2025: The Metaphors Sustain. Review of: The Place of Shells / Mai Ishizawa. Translated by Polly Barton.
Sarah MacEachern. 04/01/2025: At the Point of the Sword, Magic. Review of: Covert Joy: Selected Stories / Clarice Lispector. Translated by Katrina Dodson.
Nick Owchar. 04/02/2025: Jesus in the Fun House. Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Claire Messud. 04/02/2025: In Its Purest Form. "Claire Messud reads “Lolita” on its 70th anniversary, in an essay from the LARB Quarterly, issue no. 44, “Pressure.”
Ajay K. Mehrotra. 04/03/2025: Recovering the Forgotten Past of Black Legal Lives. Review of: Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights / Dylan C. Penningroth.
Leland de la Durantaye. 04/06/2025: Whose Voices Are These?. Review of: Parade / Rachel Cusk.
Grace Linden. 04/07/2025: The Unsettled Self. Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Luke Messac. 04/14/2025: Medicine and Lucre. Review of: No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson / Gardiner Harris -- Capitalizing a Cure: How Finance Controls the Price and Values of Medicine / Victor Roy -- Grow and Hide: The History of America’s Health Care State / Colleen M. Grogan.
Michael Knapp. 04/19/2025: Points of Confluence. Review of: The Voices of Adriana / Elvira Navarro. Translated by Christina MacSweeney.
Jesse Lau. 04/21/2025: “We’re All Chinese, Aren’t We?” Review of: Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping’s China / Emily Feng.
Esther Allen. 04/23/2025: Gulf of América. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Ieva Jusionyte. 04/23/2025: The Dialectic Lurking Behind the Brutality. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Ian Ellison. 04/26/2025: Modernity’s Slumber Factory. Review of: Sleep Works: Experiments in Science and Literature, 1899–1929 / Sebastian P. Klinger.
Maddalena Pol. 04/27/2025: Premodern Chinese Literature Can Be Trendy Too. Regarding "the new series from Oxford University Press, Hsu-Tang Library of Classical Chinese Literature."
Alix Ohlin. 04/28/2025: Savage Meritocracies. Review of: Never Let Me Go Twentieth Anniversary Edition / Kazuo Ishiguro.
Jackie Snow. 04/29/2025: Reading Behind Bars, and Beyond Barriers. "Jackie Snow reflects on what working for a books-to-prisons nonprofit has taught her about reading."
Tim Brinkhof. 04/29/2025: The World of Yesterday, Today. Revisiting The World of Yesterday: Memoirs of a European / Stefan Zweig. "the relevance of Stefan Zweig’s 1942 autobiography for our own authoritarian times."
5featherbear
Literary Review (UK) April 2025
Peter Rose. The Restless Analyst. Review of: Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age / Peter Brooks (New York Review Books).
Seamus Perry. And Did Those Fins. Review of: William Blake and The Sea Monsters of Love / Philip Hoare.
Peter York. Deluxe Editions. Review of: When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines / Graydon Carter.
Anthony Pagden. Pax Americana. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Lucy Moore. An American in Paris. Review of: Fearless and Free: A Memoir / Josephine Baker (Translated from French by Anam Zafar & Sophie Lewis) -- Josephine Baker’s Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Shaun Walker. Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll. Review of: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker (Profile); US title: The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West.
Richard Vinen. Dictator in the Dock. Review of: 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia / Philippe Sands.
Peter Rose. The Restless Analyst. Review of: Henry James Comes Home: Rediscovering America in the Gilded Age / Peter Brooks (New York Review Books).
Seamus Perry. And Did Those Fins. Review of: William Blake and The Sea Monsters of Love / Philip Hoare.
Peter York. Deluxe Editions. Review of: When the Going Was Good: An Editor’s Adventures During the Last Golden Age of Magazines / Graydon Carter.
Anthony Pagden. Pax Americana. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Lucy Moore. An American in Paris. Review of: Fearless and Free: A Memoir / Josephine Baker (Translated from French by Anam Zafar & Sophie Lewis) -- Josephine Baker’s Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Shaun Walker. Tinker, Tailor, Sleeper, Troll. Review of: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker (Profile); US title: The Illegals: Russia's Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West.
Richard Vinen. Dictator in the Dock. Review of: 38 Londres Street: On Impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia / Philippe Sands.
6featherbear
The Atlantic April 2025
Judith Shulevitz. 04/01/2025: Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Gal Beckerman. 04/14/2025: The Dark Weirdness of R. Crumb.
Rhian Sasseen. 04/17/2025: What Does the Literature of the Working Class Look Like? Review of On the Clock / Claire Baglin, translation Jordan Stump.
Grace Byron. 04/29/2025: A New Book Challenges the Church’s Reputation on Sex. Regarding Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Megan Garber. 04/29/2025: The Short-Circuiting of the American Mind. Revisiting Public Opinion / Walter Lippmann (1920).
James Parker. 04/29/2025: Dear James: A Riddle About Reading: Even when I love a book, I want it to end. Why?
Judith Shulevitz. 04/01/2025: Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Gal Beckerman. 04/14/2025: The Dark Weirdness of R. Crumb.
Rhian Sasseen. 04/17/2025: What Does the Literature of the Working Class Look Like? Review of On the Clock / Claire Baglin, translation Jordan Stump.
Grace Byron. 04/29/2025: A New Book Challenges the Church’s Reputation on Sex. Regarding Lower than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Megan Garber. 04/29/2025: The Short-Circuiting of the American Mind. Revisiting Public Opinion / Walter Lippmann (1920).
James Parker. 04/29/2025: Dear James: A Riddle About Reading: Even when I love a book, I want it to end. Why?
7featherbear
The Critic (UK) April 2025
March leftover:
Daniel Johnson. 03/31/2025: Young Winston: seizing the day. Review of: My Early Life: A Roving Commission / Winston Churchill ed. James W. Muller.
April proper:
Ben Sixsmith. 04/01/2025: Talk is deep. Review of: Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life / Agnes Callard.
David Butterfield. 04/03/2025: Michelangelo and all that. Review of: Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age / Ada Palmer.
Ella Nixon. 04/06/2025: The art of brotherly rivalry. Review of: Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape / Nicola Moorby.
Minoo Dinshaw. 04/08/2025: Courtly love: Elizabeth had been king of England, James, her successor, its queen. Review of: Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain’s First King / Gareth Russell.
The Secret Author. 04/09/2025: Who are the household names now?
Nicholas Morton. 04/20/2025: Man or superman? Review of: Frederick Barbarossa / G. A. Loud.
Patrick West. 04/30/2025: The misunderstood satirist of sin. Review of: Man-Devil: The Mind and Times of Bernard Mandeville, the Wickedest Man in Europe / John Callanan. Regarding The Fable of the Bees / Bernard Mandeville.
March leftover:
Daniel Johnson. 03/31/2025: Young Winston: seizing the day. Review of: My Early Life: A Roving Commission / Winston Churchill ed. James W. Muller.
April proper:
Ben Sixsmith. 04/01/2025: Talk is deep. Review of: Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life / Agnes Callard.
David Butterfield. 04/03/2025: Michelangelo and all that. Review of: Inventing the Renaissance: The Myth of a Golden Age / Ada Palmer.
Ella Nixon. 04/06/2025: The art of brotherly rivalry. Review of: Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape / Nicola Moorby.
Minoo Dinshaw. 04/08/2025: Courtly love: Elizabeth had been king of England, James, her successor, its queen. Review of: Queen James: The Life and Loves of Britain’s First King / Gareth Russell.
The Secret Author. 04/09/2025: Who are the household names now?
Nicholas Morton. 04/20/2025: Man or superman? Review of: Frederick Barbarossa / G. A. Loud.
Patrick West. 04/30/2025: The misunderstood satirist of sin. Review of: Man-Devil: The Mind and Times of Bernard Mandeville, the Wickedest Man in Europe / John Callanan. Regarding The Fable of the Bees / Bernard Mandeville.
8featherbear
Washington Monthly books March 23 2025 (yup)
Jonathan Alter. How Khrushchev Underestimated Kennedy. Review of: A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course / Marvin Kalb.
Zephyr Teachout. An Abundance of Ambiguity. Review of: Abundance / Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Kainoa Lowman. A Tech Billionaire Attacks His Own Kind. Review of: The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West / Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska.
Shelley Welton. Why We Need a New Tennessee Valley Authority. Review of: Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States / Sandeep Vaheesan (University of Chicago Press).
Jonathan Alter. How Khrushchev Underestimated Kennedy. Review of: A Different Russia: Khrushchev and Kennedy on a Collision Course / Marvin Kalb.
Zephyr Teachout. An Abundance of Ambiguity. Review of: Abundance / Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson.
Kainoa Lowman. A Tech Billionaire Attacks His Own Kind. Review of: The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West / Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska.
Shelley Welton. Why We Need a New Tennessee Valley Authority. Review of: Democracy in Power: A History of Electrification in the United States / Sandeep Vaheesan (University of Chicago Press).
9featherbear
Guardian books April 2025
Eric Berger. 04/01/2025: Rightwing groups across US push new bans to limit ‘obscene’ books in libraries.
J. Oliver Conroy. 04/05/2025: ‘A case study in groupthink’: were liberals wrong about the pandemic? Regarding In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us / Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee.
Lloyd Green. 04/06/2025: Scathing account of Biden, Harris and their election loss. Regarding Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
Jon Henley. 04/06/2025: Josephine Baker: the superstar turned spy who fought the Nazis and for civil rights. Review of: Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Rainesford Stauffer. 04/07/2025: Being a librarian was already hard. Then came the Trump administration.
Adria R. Walker. Guardian, 04/11/2025: Mississippi orders deletion of race and gender databases in state libraries. "Library commission says state ‘in dire shape’ and has ‘had a reconsideration of everything with regard to’ Doge."
Martin Pengally. 04/13/2025: New books chart Biden’s downfall – and the picture is damning for Democrats. Regarding Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes -- Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple. Coming in May: Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson -- Forthcoming in July: 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey (Wall Street Journal), Tyler Pager (New York Times) and Isaac Arnsdorf (Washington Post).
Leyland Cecco. 04/13/2025: Dismay as cross-border library caught in US-Canada feud: ‘We just want to stay open.’ "The Haskell Free Library and Opera House sits half in Canada, half in Vermont. Now, the US is planning to cut off main entrance access to Canadians."
Lloyd Green. 04/13/2025: Mad House: new book exposes Capitol Hill’s absurdity and dysfunction. Review of: Mad House: How Donald Trump, Maga Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress / Annie Karni & Luke Broadwater.
Killian Fox interviewing Ahmed Alnaouq. 04/13/2025: Journalist Ahmed Alnaouq: ‘It’s our duty to make Gaza’s stories immortal.’ Regarding We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth / Ahmed Alnaouq & Pam Bailey (Hutchinson Heinemann).
Sam Freedman. 04/14/2025: The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? "Skewed interpretations of classic works are feeding the dark visions of tech moguls, from Musk to Thiel."
Alison Hicks. 04/16/2025: Trump-style book censorship is spreading – just ask British librarians.
Edward Posnett. 04/17/2025: How we make animals sick: From frogs to ferrets, an eye-opening account of the ways we affect the health of other species – and vice versa. Review of: The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick / Liz Kalaugher (Icon).
Caroline Davies. 04/18/2025: JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner.
Andrew Martin. 04/20/2025: The poetry and pain of Britain’s backbone. Review of: The North Road / Rob Cowen.
Lloyd Green. 04/20/2025: Go-to author on White House reverses take on Biden and slams former president. Review of: Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple ("A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movie").
Lucy Knight. 04/29/2025: Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final part of Lyra’s story. "The acclaimed writer of His Dark Materials says the third volume in The Book of Dust series will portray a ‘dangerous, breathtaking quest.’"
Eric Berger. 04/01/2025: Rightwing groups across US push new bans to limit ‘obscene’ books in libraries.
J. Oliver Conroy. 04/05/2025: ‘A case study in groupthink’: were liberals wrong about the pandemic? Regarding In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us / Stephen Macedo and Frances Lee.
Lloyd Green. 04/06/2025: Scathing account of Biden, Harris and their election loss. Regarding Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes.
Jon Henley. 04/06/2025: Josephine Baker: the superstar turned spy who fought the Nazis and for civil rights. Review of: Josephine Baker's Secret War: The African American Star Who Fought for France and Freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Rainesford Stauffer. 04/07/2025: Being a librarian was already hard. Then came the Trump administration.
Adria R. Walker. Guardian, 04/11/2025: Mississippi orders deletion of race and gender databases in state libraries. "Library commission says state ‘in dire shape’ and has ‘had a reconsideration of everything with regard to’ Doge."
Martin Pengally. 04/13/2025: New books chart Biden’s downfall – and the picture is damning for Democrats. Regarding Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes -- Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple. Coming in May: Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson -- Forthcoming in July: 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America by Josh Dawsey (Wall Street Journal), Tyler Pager (New York Times) and Isaac Arnsdorf (Washington Post).
Leyland Cecco. 04/13/2025: Dismay as cross-border library caught in US-Canada feud: ‘We just want to stay open.’ "The Haskell Free Library and Opera House sits half in Canada, half in Vermont. Now, the US is planning to cut off main entrance access to Canadians."
Lloyd Green. 04/13/2025: Mad House: new book exposes Capitol Hill’s absurdity and dysfunction. Review of: Mad House: How Donald Trump, Maga Mean Girls, a Former Used Car Salesman, a Florida Nepo Baby, and a Man with Rats in His Walls Broke Congress / Annie Karni & Luke Broadwater.
Killian Fox interviewing Ahmed Alnaouq. 04/13/2025: Journalist Ahmed Alnaouq: ‘It’s our duty to make Gaza’s stories immortal.’ Regarding We Are Not Numbers: The Voices of Gaza’s Youth / Ahmed Alnaouq & Pam Bailey (Hutchinson Heinemann).
Sam Freedman. 04/14/2025: The big idea: will sci-fi end up destroying the world? "Skewed interpretations of classic works are feeding the dark visions of tech moguls, from Musk to Thiel."
Alison Hicks. 04/16/2025: Trump-style book censorship is spreading – just ask British librarians.
Edward Posnett. 04/17/2025: How we make animals sick: From frogs to ferrets, an eye-opening account of the ways we affect the health of other species – and vice versa. Review of: The Elephant in the Room: How to Stop Making Ourselves and Other Animals Sick / Liz Kalaugher (Icon).
Caroline Davies. 04/18/2025: JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner.
Andrew Martin. 04/20/2025: The poetry and pain of Britain’s backbone. Review of: The North Road / Rob Cowen.
Lloyd Green. 04/20/2025: Go-to author on White House reverses take on Biden and slams former president. Review of: Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple ("A beautifully written study of our longest numbered route, the A1, is full of rich asides and haunting explorations, conjuring the visual pleasure of a road movie").
Lucy Knight. 04/29/2025: Philip Pullman announces The Rose Field, the final part of Lyra’s story. "The acclaimed writer of His Dark Materials says the third volume in The Book of Dust series will portray a ‘dangerous, breathtaking quest.’"
10featherbear
WaPo belated March books 2025
Clare McHugh. 03/30/2025: As ‘Wolf Hall’ returns, questions about Thomas Cromwell remain. List of background reading for the TV series: The Tudor Revolution in Government / G.R. Elton -- Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant / Tracy Borman -- Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford / Julia Fox -- Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Nora Krug. 03/30/2025 Meet the furry star of a new bestseller. Just don’t call it a bunny. Review of: Raising Hare: A Memoir / Chloe Dalton.
Ron Charles. 03/31/2025: A fascinating look at a fraught topic: pronouns. Review of: Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words / John McWhorter.
Paul Farhi. 03/31/2025: With NPR under threat, a colorful new history shows why it matters. Review of: On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR / Steven Oney.
Jimena Canales. 03/31/2025: A new study of Einstein explores his search for spiritual meaning. Review of: I Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein / Kieran Fox (Basic Books).
Clare McHugh. 03/30/2025: As ‘Wolf Hall’ returns, questions about Thomas Cromwell remain. List of background reading for the TV series: The Tudor Revolution in Government / G.R. Elton -- Thomas Cromwell: The Untold Story of Henry VIII’s Most Faithful Servant / Tracy Borman -- Jane Boleyn: The True Story of the Infamous Lady Rochford / Julia Fox -- Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Nora Krug. 03/30/2025 Meet the furry star of a new bestseller. Just don’t call it a bunny. Review of: Raising Hare: A Memoir / Chloe Dalton.
Ron Charles. 03/31/2025: A fascinating look at a fraught topic: pronouns. Review of: Pronoun Trouble: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words / John McWhorter.
Paul Farhi. 03/31/2025: With NPR under threat, a colorful new history shows why it matters. Review of: On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR / Steven Oney.
Jimena Canales. 03/31/2025: A new study of Einstein explores his search for spiritual meaning. Review of: I Am a Part of Infinity: The Spiritual Journey of Albert Einstein / Kieran Fox (Basic Books).
11featherbear
JSTOR Daily April 2025
H.M.A. Loew. 04/01/2025: Joseph Conrad’s Travel Stories Weren’t Black and White. "Conrad’s celebration of imperial exploration is accompanied by an acknowledgment that such feats often go hand-in-hand with oppression and exploitation."
H.M.A. Loew. 04/01/2025: Joseph Conrad’s Travel Stories Weren’t Black and White. "Conrad’s celebration of imperial exploration is accompanied by an acknowledgment that such feats often go hand-in-hand with oppression and exploitation."
12featherbear
fivebooks.com April 2025 (plus late March)
Sophie Gee, interviewer Sophie Roell. 03/31/2025: The Best 18th-Century Novels. The recommends are: Moll Flanders / Daniel Defoe -- Tom Jones / Henry Fielding -- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman / Laurence Sterne -- Belinda / Maria Edgeworth -- Sense and Sensibility / Jane Austen.
I would have added: Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady / Samuel Richardson, maybe in an abridged edition.
fivebooks.com. 04/20/2025: Books By Japanese Authors. "Japanese literature has always performed strongly on Five Books, so we've put together an overview of some of the books on our site by Japanese authors that have previously been recommended by our expert interviewees—from contemporary novels shortlisted for the International Booker Prize to classic works of literature, and everything in between." (English translations, natch)
Richard Village, interviewer not named. 04/24/2025: The Best Novels by Spanish Authors. The recommended novels: Don Quixote / Cervantes, trans Edith Grossman -- Berta Isla: A novel / Javier Marías, translator Margaret Jull Costa -- Homeland: A Novel / Fernando Aramburu, translator Alfred J. MacAdam -- The Frozen Heart / Almudena Grandes (no translator given) -- An Olympic Death / Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, translator, Ed Emery. Not mentioned is Village's recent translation of Spanish Beauty / Esther García Llovet.
Sophie Gee, interviewer Sophie Roell. 03/31/2025: The Best 18th-Century Novels. The recommends are: Moll Flanders / Daniel Defoe -- Tom Jones / Henry Fielding -- The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy Gentleman / Laurence Sterne -- Belinda / Maria Edgeworth -- Sense and Sensibility / Jane Austen.
I would have added: Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady / Samuel Richardson, maybe in an abridged edition.
fivebooks.com. 04/20/2025: Books By Japanese Authors. "Japanese literature has always performed strongly on Five Books, so we've put together an overview of some of the books on our site by Japanese authors that have previously been recommended by our expert interviewees—from contemporary novels shortlisted for the International Booker Prize to classic works of literature, and everything in between." (English translations, natch)
Richard Village, interviewer not named. 04/24/2025: The Best Novels by Spanish Authors. The recommended novels: Don Quixote / Cervantes, trans Edith Grossman -- Berta Isla: A novel / Javier Marías, translator Margaret Jull Costa -- Homeland: A Novel / Fernando Aramburu, translator Alfred J. MacAdam -- The Frozen Heart / Almudena Grandes (no translator given) -- An Olympic Death / Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, translator, Ed Emery. Not mentioned is Village's recent translation of Spanish Beauty / Esther García Llovet.
13featherbear
TLS April 4, 2025|No. 6366
Featured
Houman Bareket. Writer, lawyer, banker, cleaner: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s tale of four women – and many social ills. Review of: DREAM COUNT / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Aaron Peck. Rebirth of the modern: The future of art and artists in the era of artificial intelligence. Review of: WHAT ART DOES: An unfinished theory / Brian Eno And Bette A. -- HOW TO BE AVANT-GARDE: Modern artists and the quest to end art / Morgan Falconer -- THE UNCANNY MUSE: Music, art, and machines from automata to AI / David Hajdu.
Lisa Hilton. Raging bull: Rejecting the narrative of Picasso the monster to women. Review of: HIDDEN PORTRAITS: The untold stories of six women who loved Picasso / Sue Roe.
Padraic X. Scanlan. A bad business: Recalculating the economic gains of slavery. Review of: HUMANS IN SHACKLES: An Atlantic history of slavery / Ana Lucia Araujo -- ATLANTIC CATACLYSM: Rethinking the Atlantic slave trades / David Eltis -- ENSLAVEMENT: Past and present / Orlando Patterson (Polity).
Mary Beard, TLS landing page. Museums in Sudan.
Literature
Adam Roberts. Childhood’s end: The making of a dystopian SF novelist. Review of: OCTAVIA E. BUTLER: H is for horse / Chi-Ming Yang.
Michael LaPointe. The detestable sheriff of Uz: Magic, memory and witches in Dust Bowl America. Review of: THE ANTIDOTE / Karen Russell.
Beejay Silcox. Love like water: A fire-ravaged road trip along the Colorado River. Review of: ELEGY, SOUTHWEST / Madeleine Watts.
Irina Dumitrescu. Marginal lives: The genius of Sholem Aleichem. (Essay)
Patricia Craig. Hero and romance: Tales from Irish myths and legends. Review of: OTHERWORLD: Nine tales of wonder and romance from medieval Ireland / Lisa M. Bitel.
Katherine J. Chen. Spellbound: Magic took on a life of its own in medieval texts. Review of: THE MAGIC BOOKS: A history of enchantment in 20 medieval manuscripts / Anne Lawrence-Mathers.
Bryan Karetnyk. The floating world: Classic anthologies of Japanese poetry in new translations. Review of: HYAKUNIN’SHU: Reading the Hundred Poets in late Edo Japan / Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawaii Press) -- JIUTA SŌKYOKU LYRICS AND EXPLANATIONS: Songs of the floating world / translations and annotations by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel with Gunnar Jinmei Linder (Routledge).
Alice Wadsworth. Living la vida loca: Marxist machismo and homophobia in Chile. Review of: A LAST SUPPER OF QUEER APOSTLES: Selected essays / Pedro Lemebel; translated by Gwendolyn Harper.
Franklin Nelson. Loyal rebel: A founder of the Négritude movement in francophone literature. Review of: RETURN TO MY NATIVE LAND / Aimé Césaire; translated by John Berger and Anna Bostock -- …… AND THE DOGS WERE SILENT/ …… ET LES CHIENS SE TAISAIENT: Césaire’s lost play of the Haitian Revolution / Aimé Césaire; translated by Alex Gil (Duke University Press) -- ENGAGEMENTS WITH AIMÉ CÉSAIRE: Thinking with spirits / Jason Allen-Paisant (Oxford University Press).
In Brief Review of: THE UNWORTHY / Agustina Bazterrica; translated by Sarah Moses.
In Brief Review of: THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT / Elaine Garvey.
In Brief Review of: HAVOC / Christopher Bollen ("The yawning age gap between the eighty-one-year-old narrator, Maggie Burkhardt, and her eight-year-old antagonist allows for an entertaining, if sometimes perplexing, intergenerational feud that unspools at an Egyptian hotel during the Covid-19 pandemic").
In Brief Review of: THE EERIE BOOK / Margaret Armour, editor (reissue of "a compendium of supernatural short stories and extracts, edited by the Scottish author Margaret Armour in 1898").
Arts
Charles Darwent. Walking through pain: Picasso and fellow ‘degenerate’ artists under the Nazis. Review of the exhibition L’ART “DÉGÉNÉRÉ”: Le procès de l’art moderne sous le Nazism, Musée Picasso, Paris, until May 25.
Ben Street. The odd couple: Turner and Constable’s ‘fraternal’ relationship. Review of: TURNER AND CONSTABLE: Art, life, landscape / Nicola Moorby.
Science & Technology
Pippa Goldschmidt. Our place in space: Exoplanets in science and science fiction. Review of: AMAZING WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION AND SCIENCE FACT / Keith Cooper.
In Brief Review of: NEXUS: A brief history of information from the Stone Age to AI / Yual Noah Harari.
Religion
Alister McGrath. Looking for answers: The search for faith in Christian Britain. Review of: DON’T FORGET WE’RE HERE FOREVER: A new generation’s search for religion / Lamorna Ash.
René Breuel. Mere religion: A case for traditional faiths in an age of experimentation. Review of: BELIEVE: Why everyone should be religious / Ross Douthat.
History, Politics, & Society
Caroline Moorehead. Performer, patriot, spy: Josephine Baker, toast of Paris and campaigner against racism. Review of: FEARLESS AND FREE: A memoir / Josephine Baker; translated by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis -- JOSEPHINE BAKER’S SECRET WAR: The African American star who fought for France and freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Kyle Burke. Enemy of the elites: Huey Long, the populist governor and senator who coveted the presidency. Review of: AMERICAN POPULIST: Huey Long of Louisiana / Thomas E. Patterson (LSU Press).
Sarah Baxter. Showman must go on: Donald Trump’s comeback, by his Boswell and nemesis. Review of: ALL OR NOTHING: How Trump recaptured America / Michael Wolff.
In Brief Review of: RAISED BY A SERIAL KILLER: Discovering the truth about my father / April Balascio.
In Brief Review of: CHILE UNDERGROUND: The Santiago Metro and the struggle for a rational city / Andra B. Chastain.
Featured
Houman Bareket. Writer, lawyer, banker, cleaner: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s tale of four women – and many social ills. Review of: DREAM COUNT / Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Aaron Peck. Rebirth of the modern: The future of art and artists in the era of artificial intelligence. Review of: WHAT ART DOES: An unfinished theory / Brian Eno And Bette A. -- HOW TO BE AVANT-GARDE: Modern artists and the quest to end art / Morgan Falconer -- THE UNCANNY MUSE: Music, art, and machines from automata to AI / David Hajdu.
Lisa Hilton. Raging bull: Rejecting the narrative of Picasso the monster to women. Review of: HIDDEN PORTRAITS: The untold stories of six women who loved Picasso / Sue Roe.
Padraic X. Scanlan. A bad business: Recalculating the economic gains of slavery. Review of: HUMANS IN SHACKLES: An Atlantic history of slavery / Ana Lucia Araujo -- ATLANTIC CATACLYSM: Rethinking the Atlantic slave trades / David Eltis -- ENSLAVEMENT: Past and present / Orlando Patterson (Polity).
Mary Beard, TLS landing page. Museums in Sudan.
Literature
Adam Roberts. Childhood’s end: The making of a dystopian SF novelist. Review of: OCTAVIA E. BUTLER: H is for horse / Chi-Ming Yang.
Michael LaPointe. The detestable sheriff of Uz: Magic, memory and witches in Dust Bowl America. Review of: THE ANTIDOTE / Karen Russell.
Beejay Silcox. Love like water: A fire-ravaged road trip along the Colorado River. Review of: ELEGY, SOUTHWEST / Madeleine Watts.
Irina Dumitrescu. Marginal lives: The genius of Sholem Aleichem. (Essay)
Patricia Craig. Hero and romance: Tales from Irish myths and legends. Review of: OTHERWORLD: Nine tales of wonder and romance from medieval Ireland / Lisa M. Bitel.
Katherine J. Chen. Spellbound: Magic took on a life of its own in medieval texts. Review of: THE MAGIC BOOKS: A history of enchantment in 20 medieval manuscripts / Anne Lawrence-Mathers.
Bryan Karetnyk. The floating world: Classic anthologies of Japanese poetry in new translations. Review of: HYAKUNIN’SHU: Reading the Hundred Poets in late Edo Japan / Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawaii Press) -- JIUTA SŌKYOKU LYRICS AND EXPLANATIONS: Songs of the floating world / translations and annotations by Christopher Yohmei Blasdel with Gunnar Jinmei Linder (Routledge).
Alice Wadsworth. Living la vida loca: Marxist machismo and homophobia in Chile. Review of: A LAST SUPPER OF QUEER APOSTLES: Selected essays / Pedro Lemebel; translated by Gwendolyn Harper.
Franklin Nelson. Loyal rebel: A founder of the Négritude movement in francophone literature. Review of: RETURN TO MY NATIVE LAND / Aimé Césaire; translated by John Berger and Anna Bostock -- …… AND THE DOGS WERE SILENT/ …… ET LES CHIENS SE TAISAIENT: Césaire’s lost play of the Haitian Revolution / Aimé Césaire; translated by Alex Gil (Duke University Press) -- ENGAGEMENTS WITH AIMÉ CÉSAIRE: Thinking with spirits / Jason Allen-Paisant (Oxford University Press).
In Brief Review of: THE UNWORTHY / Agustina Bazterrica; translated by Sarah Moses.
In Brief Review of: THE WARDROBE DEPARTMENT / Elaine Garvey.
In Brief Review of: HAVOC / Christopher Bollen ("The yawning age gap between the eighty-one-year-old narrator, Maggie Burkhardt, and her eight-year-old antagonist allows for an entertaining, if sometimes perplexing, intergenerational feud that unspools at an Egyptian hotel during the Covid-19 pandemic").
In Brief Review of: THE EERIE BOOK / Margaret Armour, editor (reissue of "a compendium of supernatural short stories and extracts, edited by the Scottish author Margaret Armour in 1898").
Arts
Charles Darwent. Walking through pain: Picasso and fellow ‘degenerate’ artists under the Nazis. Review of the exhibition L’ART “DÉGÉNÉRÉ”: Le procès de l’art moderne sous le Nazism, Musée Picasso, Paris, until May 25.
Ben Street. The odd couple: Turner and Constable’s ‘fraternal’ relationship. Review of: TURNER AND CONSTABLE: Art, life, landscape / Nicola Moorby.
Science & Technology
Pippa Goldschmidt. Our place in space: Exoplanets in science and science fiction. Review of: AMAZING WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION AND SCIENCE FACT / Keith Cooper.
In Brief Review of: NEXUS: A brief history of information from the Stone Age to AI / Yual Noah Harari.
Religion
Alister McGrath. Looking for answers: The search for faith in Christian Britain. Review of: DON’T FORGET WE’RE HERE FOREVER: A new generation’s search for religion / Lamorna Ash.
René Breuel. Mere religion: A case for traditional faiths in an age of experimentation. Review of: BELIEVE: Why everyone should be religious / Ross Douthat.
History, Politics, & Society
Caroline Moorehead. Performer, patriot, spy: Josephine Baker, toast of Paris and campaigner against racism. Review of: FEARLESS AND FREE: A memoir / Josephine Baker; translated by Anam Zafar and Sophie Lewis -- JOSEPHINE BAKER’S SECRET WAR: The African American star who fought for France and freedom / Hanna Diamond (Yale University Press).
Kyle Burke. Enemy of the elites: Huey Long, the populist governor and senator who coveted the presidency. Review of: AMERICAN POPULIST: Huey Long of Louisiana / Thomas E. Patterson (LSU Press).
Sarah Baxter. Showman must go on: Donald Trump’s comeback, by his Boswell and nemesis. Review of: ALL OR NOTHING: How Trump recaptured America / Michael Wolff.
In Brief Review of: RAISED BY A SERIAL KILLER: Discovering the truth about my father / April Balascio.
In Brief Review of: CHILE UNDERGROUND: The Santiago Metro and the struggle for a rational city / Andra B. Chastain.
14featherbear
Richard Bernstein, 1944-2025
Richard Cohen. NYT, 04/02/2025: Richard Bernstein Dies at 80; Times Correspondent, Critic and Author."He wrote from Europe and Asia, served as a book critic and produced a raft of books, on subjects ranging from the French condition to multiculturalism."
Following a BA in history from UConn, "... M.A. at Harvard University in history and East Asian languages, a course chosen in part because it offered the possibility of moving to Taiwan to study Mandarin. There was born a passion for Asia that never left him. It led to jobs as a stringer and later correspondent in Beijing for Time magazine before he joined The Times in 1982, initially as a reporter covering metropolitan New York."
Regarding the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, he observed, "there was something new and singular in the government’s bald denial of what had happened and in its “entirely modern campaign of incessant propaganda” against the “thugs,” as the government called its victims.
“The notion here is that any opposition to the Government is not just wrong,” he wrote. “It is criminal, treasonous, counterrevolutionary, and those who led it deserve neither respect nor humane treatment.”
Author of: Fragile Glory: a Portrait of France and the French -- Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future -- The East, the West, and Sex: A History -- Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero
Richard Bernstein's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/bernsteinrichard-1
Richard Cohen. NYT, 04/02/2025: Richard Bernstein Dies at 80; Times Correspondent, Critic and Author."He wrote from Europe and Asia, served as a book critic and produced a raft of books, on subjects ranging from the French condition to multiculturalism."
Following a BA in history from UConn, "... M.A. at Harvard University in history and East Asian languages, a course chosen in part because it offered the possibility of moving to Taiwan to study Mandarin. There was born a passion for Asia that never left him. It led to jobs as a stringer and later correspondent in Beijing for Time magazine before he joined The Times in 1982, initially as a reporter covering metropolitan New York."
Regarding the massacre of students at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, he observed, "there was something new and singular in the government’s bald denial of what had happened and in its “entirely modern campaign of incessant propaganda” against the “thugs,” as the government called its victims.
“The notion here is that any opposition to the Government is not just wrong,” he wrote. “It is criminal, treasonous, counterrevolutionary, and those who led it deserve neither respect nor humane treatment.”
Author of: Fragile Glory: a Portrait of France and the French -- Dictatorship of Virtue: Multiculturalism and the Battle for America's Future -- The East, the West, and Sex: A History -- Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero
Richard Bernstein's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/bernsteinrichard-1
15featherbear
NYT books April 2025
Lauren Christensen. 04/01/2025: A Victim of Childhood Rape Close-Reads Her Past. Review of: SAD TIGER / Neige Sinno; translated by Natasha Lehrer.
New York Times Book Review editors. 04/02/2025: Let Us Help You Find Your Next Book Fantasy. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Leah Greenblatt. 04/02/2025: Why Are We So Fascinated by Cults? Review of: THE INSTABILITY OF TRUTH: Brainwashing, Mind Control and Hyper-Persuasion / Rebecca Lemov -- BLAZING EYE SEES ALL: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age / by Leah Sottile.
T Bone Burnett. 04/03/2025: Beatlemania: A Penetrating New Book Celebrates Lennon and McCartney. Review of: JOHN & PAUL: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Alexander Narazyan. 04/04/2025: 30 Years Ago, This Book Saw the Coming Backlash Against Elites. Regarding The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy / Christopher Lasch (1995).
Emma Brockes. 04/04/2025: A Subversive Family Memoir Tinged With Tragedy and Mustard Gas. Review of: CHILDREN OF RADIUM: A Buried Inheritance / Joe Dunthorne.
Alexandra Tanner. 04/05/2025: Frustrated With Dating? These Novels Are for You. Review of: LIQUID: A Love Story / Mariam Rahmani -- PARADISE LOGIC / Sophie Kemp.
Sam Thielman. 04/05/2025: A Stunning, Hallucinatory Retelling of Greek Myth. Regarding a graphic novel version of the Prometheus myth, TONGUES: Volume 1 / Anders Nilsen.
Sadie Stein. 04/06/2025: Dear Armchair Mountaineers: A Cherished Literary Classic Awaits. Regarding THE LIVING MOUNTAIN / Nan Shepherd.
Alexandra Jacobs. 04/06/2025: Wordplay, Weirdness and a Guest Appearance by Clint Eastwood. Review of: THRILLED TO DEATH: Selected Stories / Lynne Tillman.
Jessica Roy. 04/06/2025: The Ultimate Millennial Multihyphenate. Regarding Reality TV/Influencer Paige DeSorbo & her upcoming book How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously due April 15.
Dwight Garner. 04/07/2025: Could This Be the Funniest Book Ever Written? On the 50th anniversary of The Unexpurgated Code: a complete manual of survival and manners / J.P. Donleavy.
Fintan O'Toole. 04/07/2025: Why Did Democrats Let Biden Keep Running in 2024? Review of: UNCHARTED: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple.
Joumana Khatib. 04/07/2025: Is He a Stranger, Her Son, Her Lover or All Three? Review of: AUDITION: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Jack Hanson. 04/08/2025: Who Was Jesus? The World May Never Know. Review of: MIRACLES AND WONDER: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/09/2025: The Far Right’s Love-Hate Relationship With Globalization. Review of: HAYEK’S BASTARDS: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Chris Power. 04/10/2025: A Tale of Bloodshed and Lost Love in China’s Turbulent Past. Review of: CITY OF FICTION / Yu Hua; translated by Todd Foley.
Joshua Hamer. 04/10/2025: The Forgotten Story of 6 Immigrants Saved From the Titanic. Review of: THE SIX: The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Chinese Survivors / Steven Schwankert.
Ruben Reyes. 04/10/2025: Vietnamese Americans Are Swept Into Detention Camps in this Comic (Yes) Novel. Review of: MỸ DOCUMENTS / Kevin Nguyen.
John Ismay. 04/11/2025: Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library? TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
William Logan. 04/11/2025: He Won a Nobel. These Poems Show Him Finding His Voice. Review of: POET IN THE NEW WORLD: Poems, 1946-1953 / Czeslaw Milosz; edited by Robert Hass and David Frick.
Chelsea Leu. 04/12/2025: Murder, Medicis and Old Masters in a Historical Whodunit. Review of: PERSPECTIVE(S) / Laurent Binet; translated by Sam Taylor.
Dwight Garner. 04/14/2025: A Memoir of What A.I. Giveth, and What It Taketh Away. Review of: SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age / Vauhini Vara.
Leo Robson. 04/14/2025: It’s a Mystery. No, It’s a Campus Novel. No, It’s Autofiction. Review of: THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE / Jonathan Coe.
Spencer Strub. 04/14/2025; upd 4/17: 2,000 Years Later, Christians Are Still Worrying About Sex. Review of: LOWER THAN THE ANGELS: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Dennis Duncan. 04/15/2025: The Centuries-Long Struggle to Make English Words Behave. Review of: ENOUGH IS ENUF: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell / Gabe Henry -- PRONOUN TROUBLE: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words / John McWhorter.
Adam Tooze. 04/15/2025: This Global Warming Book Is a Token From Another World. Review of: WHAT’S LEFT: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis / Malcolm Harris.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/16/2025: A Bold New History Highlights Latin America’s Humanist Ideals. Review of: AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Joseph Finder. 04/17/2025: The Russian Spies Who Lived Among Us — in New Jersey. Review of: THE ILLEGALS: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Robert P. Baird. 04/17/2025: In 1917, 3 Portuguese Children Saw the Virgin. The Rest Is Top-Secret. Review of: SORROWFUL MYSTERIES: The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century / Stephen Harrigan.
Joumana Khatib. 04/18/2025: Everything You Need to Know About Emily Henry. "Her best-selling romances have made her a new standard-bearer of the genre."
Joanna Scutts. 04/22/2025: The Marriage, and Ménage à Trois, That Changed Art History. Review of GABRIËLE / Anne Berest and Claire Berest; translated by Tina Kover (a novel re-creating the life of Gabriële Buffet-Picabia).
Jason Zinoman. 04/28/2025: My Life With Uncle Vanya, the Self-Pitying Sad Sack We Can’t Quit. "What is it about Chekhov’s melancholy inaction hero that makes him, and the play he stars in, so meaningful at all ages?"
Amy S. Greenberg. 04/29/2025: Rick Atkinson Makes the American Revolution Come Brilliantly Alive. Review of: THE FATE OF THE DAY: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 / Rick Atkinson.
Steve Inskeep. 04/29/2025: Immigration Has Always Been Complex. Just Ask the People Who Built U.S. Railroads. Review of: STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America / Michael Luo.
Julia Scheeres. 04/29/2025: Healing the Scars Left by America’s Indian Boarding Schools. Review of: MEDICINE RIVER: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools / Mary Annette Pember.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/30/2025: Just Because You Can Prove It Doesn’t Make It True. Review of: PROOF: The Art and Science of Certainty / Adam Kucharski.
David Segal. 04/30/2025: In a Nazi-Era Filmmaker’s Compromises, a Novelist Finds Reasons to Fear. Review of: The Director: A Novel / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin.
Maya Salam. How Pop Culture Betrayed Millennial Women. Review of: GIRL ON GIRL: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
Lauren Christensen. 04/01/2025: A Victim of Childhood Rape Close-Reads Her Past. Review of: SAD TIGER / Neige Sinno; translated by Natasha Lehrer.
New York Times Book Review editors. 04/02/2025: Let Us Help You Find Your Next Book Fantasy. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Leah Greenblatt. 04/02/2025: Why Are We So Fascinated by Cults? Review of: THE INSTABILITY OF TRUTH: Brainwashing, Mind Control and Hyper-Persuasion / Rebecca Lemov -- BLAZING EYE SEES ALL: Love Has Won, False Prophets and the Fever Dream of the American New Age / by Leah Sottile.
T Bone Burnett. 04/03/2025: Beatlemania: A Penetrating New Book Celebrates Lennon and McCartney. Review of: JOHN & PAUL: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Alexander Narazyan. 04/04/2025: 30 Years Ago, This Book Saw the Coming Backlash Against Elites. Regarding The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy / Christopher Lasch (1995).
Emma Brockes. 04/04/2025: A Subversive Family Memoir Tinged With Tragedy and Mustard Gas. Review of: CHILDREN OF RADIUM: A Buried Inheritance / Joe Dunthorne.
Alexandra Tanner. 04/05/2025: Frustrated With Dating? These Novels Are for You. Review of: LIQUID: A Love Story / Mariam Rahmani -- PARADISE LOGIC / Sophie Kemp.
Sam Thielman. 04/05/2025: A Stunning, Hallucinatory Retelling of Greek Myth. Regarding a graphic novel version of the Prometheus myth, TONGUES: Volume 1 / Anders Nilsen.
Sadie Stein. 04/06/2025: Dear Armchair Mountaineers: A Cherished Literary Classic Awaits. Regarding THE LIVING MOUNTAIN / Nan Shepherd.
Alexandra Jacobs. 04/06/2025: Wordplay, Weirdness and a Guest Appearance by Clint Eastwood. Review of: THRILLED TO DEATH: Selected Stories / Lynne Tillman.
Jessica Roy. 04/06/2025: The Ultimate Millennial Multihyphenate. Regarding Reality TV/Influencer Paige DeSorbo & her upcoming book How to Giggle: A Guide to Taking Life Less Seriously due April 15.
Dwight Garner. 04/07/2025: Could This Be the Funniest Book Ever Written? On the 50th anniversary of The Unexpurgated Code: a complete manual of survival and manners / J.P. Donleavy.
Fintan O'Toole. 04/07/2025: Why Did Democrats Let Biden Keep Running in 2024? Review of: UNCHARTED: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History / Chris Whipple.
Joumana Khatib. 04/07/2025: Is He a Stranger, Her Son, Her Lover or All Three? Review of: AUDITION: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Jack Hanson. 04/08/2025: Who Was Jesus? The World May Never Know. Review of: MIRACLES AND WONDER: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/09/2025: The Far Right’s Love-Hate Relationship With Globalization. Review of: HAYEK’S BASTARDS: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Chris Power. 04/10/2025: A Tale of Bloodshed and Lost Love in China’s Turbulent Past. Review of: CITY OF FICTION / Yu Hua; translated by Todd Foley.
Joshua Hamer. 04/10/2025: The Forgotten Story of 6 Immigrants Saved From the Titanic. Review of: THE SIX: The Untold Story of the Titanic’s Chinese Survivors / Steven Schwankert.
Ruben Reyes. 04/10/2025: Vietnamese Americans Are Swept Into Detention Camps in this Comic (Yes) Novel. Review of: MỸ DOCUMENTS / Kevin Nguyen.
John Ismay. 04/11/2025: Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library? TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
William Logan. 04/11/2025: He Won a Nobel. These Poems Show Him Finding His Voice. Review of: POET IN THE NEW WORLD: Poems, 1946-1953 / Czeslaw Milosz; edited by Robert Hass and David Frick.
Chelsea Leu. 04/12/2025: Murder, Medicis and Old Masters in a Historical Whodunit. Review of: PERSPECTIVE(S) / Laurent Binet; translated by Sam Taylor.
Dwight Garner. 04/14/2025: A Memoir of What A.I. Giveth, and What It Taketh Away. Review of: SEARCHES: Selfhood in the Digital Age / Vauhini Vara.
Leo Robson. 04/14/2025: It’s a Mystery. No, It’s a Campus Novel. No, It’s Autofiction. Review of: THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE / Jonathan Coe.
Spencer Strub. 04/14/2025; upd 4/17: 2,000 Years Later, Christians Are Still Worrying About Sex. Review of: LOWER THAN THE ANGELS: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Dennis Duncan. 04/15/2025: The Centuries-Long Struggle to Make English Words Behave. Review of: ENOUGH IS ENUF: Our Failed Attempts to Make English Easier to Spell / Gabe Henry -- PRONOUN TROUBLE: The Story of Us in Seven Little Words / John McWhorter.
Adam Tooze. 04/15/2025: This Global Warming Book Is a Token From Another World. Review of: WHAT’S LEFT: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis / Malcolm Harris.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/16/2025: A Bold New History Highlights Latin America’s Humanist Ideals. Review of: AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
Joseph Finder. 04/17/2025: The Russian Spies Who Lived Among Us — in New Jersey. Review of: THE ILLEGALS: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and Their Century-Long Mission to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Robert P. Baird. 04/17/2025: In 1917, 3 Portuguese Children Saw the Virgin. The Rest Is Top-Secret. Review of: SORROWFUL MYSTERIES: The Shepherd Children of Fatima and the Fate of the Twentieth Century / Stephen Harrigan.
Joumana Khatib. 04/18/2025: Everything You Need to Know About Emily Henry. "Her best-selling romances have made her a new standard-bearer of the genre."
Joanna Scutts. 04/22/2025: The Marriage, and Ménage à Trois, That Changed Art History. Review of GABRIËLE / Anne Berest and Claire Berest; translated by Tina Kover (a novel re-creating the life of Gabriële Buffet-Picabia).
Jason Zinoman. 04/28/2025: My Life With Uncle Vanya, the Self-Pitying Sad Sack We Can’t Quit. "What is it about Chekhov’s melancholy inaction hero that makes him, and the play he stars in, so meaningful at all ages?"
Amy S. Greenberg. 04/29/2025: Rick Atkinson Makes the American Revolution Come Brilliantly Alive. Review of: THE FATE OF THE DAY: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780 / Rick Atkinson.
Steve Inskeep. 04/29/2025: Immigration Has Always Been Complex. Just Ask the People Who Built U.S. Railroads. Review of: STRANGERS IN THE LAND: Exclusion, Belonging, and the Epic Story of the Chinese in America / Michael Luo.
Julia Scheeres. 04/29/2025: Healing the Scars Left by America’s Indian Boarding Schools. Review of: MEDICINE RIVER: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools / Mary Annette Pember.
Jennifer Szalai. 04/30/2025: Just Because You Can Prove It Doesn’t Make It True. Review of: PROOF: The Art and Science of Certainty / Adam Kucharski.
David Segal. 04/30/2025: In a Nazi-Era Filmmaker’s Compromises, a Novelist Finds Reasons to Fear. Review of: The Director: A Novel / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin.
Maya Salam. How Pop Culture Betrayed Millennial Women. Review of: GIRL ON GIRL: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
16featherbear
B.D. McClay. The Point, 03/19/2025: The Soul Should Not Be Handled: On trash and speculative fiction, part 1.
17featherbear
New Yorker books April 2025, w/belated March postings
Joan Didion. 03/31/2025: What We Knew Without Knowing: Notes to John Gregory Dunne.
Louis Menand. 03/31/2025: Why the Court Hit the Brakes on School Desegregation. Review of: The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Leslie Camhi. 04/04/2025: Neige Sinno Doesn’t Believe in Writing as Therapy. Review of: Sad Tiger / Neige Sinno.
Katie Kitamura, interviewer Jennifer Wilson. 04/06/2025: Katie Kitamura Knows We’re Faking It. "The novelist discusses her new book, “Audition,” the role of performance in everyday life, and the trick of crafting a narrative that functions as a “Rorschach blot.”
Nikil Saval. 04/07/2025: James C. Scott and the Art of Resistance. Looking back on the career of the late political scientist, with a review of: In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) / James C. Scott, with reference to his Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1999), The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1977), Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985), Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1992), The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) (2009), Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (2017), Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play (2012).
Elif Batuman. 04/07/2025: Sayaka Murata’s Alien Eye. "The author of “Convenience Store Woman” has gained a cult following by seeing the ordinary world as science fiction."
Casey Cep. 04/14/2025: The “Lady Preacher” Who Became World-Famous—and Then Vanished. Review of: Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson / Claire Hoffman.
Margaret Talbot. 04/14/2025: Does a Fetus Have Constitutional Rights?. Review of: Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction / Mary Ziegler (forthcoming April 22 Yale University Press).
Joshua Rothman. 04/15/2025: What Do You Remember? Regarding Joe Brainard: I Remember / ed Ron Padgett -- My Struggle / Karl Ove Knausgaard.
Rachel Monroe. 04/18/2025: The Decline of Outside Magazine Is Also the End of a Vision of the Mountain West.
Jessica Winter. 04/21/2025: How Much Should You Know About Your Child Before He’s Born? Regarding Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age / Amanda Hess.
Geraldo Cadava. 04/23/2025: What America Means to Latin Americans. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
D. Graham Burnett. 04/23/2025: Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?
Jill Lepore. 04/28/2025: A Hundred Classics to Get Me Through a Hundred Days of Trump. Reading "Penguin Little Black Classics, a collection of slender paperbacks that I’d been meaning to read, each as thin and sleek as my phone, bound in black, with white type on a plain cover" for solace.
Kathryn Schulz. 04/28/2025: When Jews Sought the Promised Land in Texas. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Lauren Michel Jackson. 04/28/2025: The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Alexander Manshel. 04/29/2025: How “The Great Gatsby” Took Over High School.
Joan Didion. 03/31/2025: What We Knew Without Knowing: Notes to John Gregory Dunne.
Louis Menand. 03/31/2025: Why the Court Hit the Brakes on School Desegregation. Review of: The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Leslie Camhi. 04/04/2025: Neige Sinno Doesn’t Believe in Writing as Therapy. Review of: Sad Tiger / Neige Sinno.
Katie Kitamura, interviewer Jennifer Wilson. 04/06/2025: Katie Kitamura Knows We’re Faking It. "The novelist discusses her new book, “Audition,” the role of performance in everyday life, and the trick of crafting a narrative that functions as a “Rorschach blot.”
Nikil Saval. 04/07/2025: James C. Scott and the Art of Resistance. Looking back on the career of the late political scientist, with a review of: In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) / James C. Scott, with reference to his Seeing like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (1999), The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia (1977), Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (1985), Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1992), The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) (2009), Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (2017), Two Cheers for Anarchism: Six Easy Pieces on Autonomy, Dignity, and Meaningful Work and Play (2012).
Elif Batuman. 04/07/2025: Sayaka Murata’s Alien Eye. "The author of “Convenience Store Woman” has gained a cult following by seeing the ordinary world as science fiction."
Casey Cep. 04/14/2025: The “Lady Preacher” Who Became World-Famous—and Then Vanished. Review of: Sister, Sinner: The Miraculous Life and Mysterious Disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson / Claire Hoffman.
Margaret Talbot. 04/14/2025: Does a Fetus Have Constitutional Rights?. Review of: Personhood: The New Civil War over Reproduction / Mary Ziegler (forthcoming April 22 Yale University Press).
Joshua Rothman. 04/15/2025: What Do You Remember? Regarding Joe Brainard: I Remember / ed Ron Padgett -- My Struggle / Karl Ove Knausgaard.
Rachel Monroe. 04/18/2025: The Decline of Outside Magazine Is Also the End of a Vision of the Mountain West.
Jessica Winter. 04/21/2025: How Much Should You Know About Your Child Before He’s Born? Regarding Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age / Amanda Hess.
Geraldo Cadava. 04/23/2025: What America Means to Latin Americans. Review of: America, América: A New History of the New World / Greg Grandin.
D. Graham Burnett. 04/23/2025: Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?
Jill Lepore. 04/28/2025: A Hundred Classics to Get Me Through a Hundred Days of Trump. Reading "Penguin Little Black Classics, a collection of slender paperbacks that I’d been meaning to read, each as thin and sleek as my phone, bound in black, with white type on a plain cover" for solace.
Kathryn Schulz. 04/28/2025: When Jews Sought the Promised Land in Texas. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Lauren Michel Jackson. 04/28/2025: The Impossible Contradictions of Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Alexander Manshel. 04/29/2025: How “The Great Gatsby” Took Over High School.
18featherbear
WaPo books April 2025
Ron Charles. 04/01/2025: In John Kenney’s comic novel, an obituary writer’s joke goes wrong. Review of: I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel / John Kenney.
Sam Tannenhaus. 04/02/2025: ‘Fight’ recounts the 2024 election but misses its stakes. Review of: Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes.
Justin Taylor. 04/03/2025: Katie Kitamura’s ‘Audition’ is a slow-burn psychological thriller. Review of Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/04/2025: Rethinking the roots and contradictions of Trumpism. Review of: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Maura Judkis. 04/04/2025: The restaurant industry tore her down. In her memoir, she hits back. Review of: Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly / Hannah Selinger.
Elamin Abdelmahmoud. 04/05/2025: A novelist turns to nonfiction to make a bracing case for empathy. Review of: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This / Omar El Akkad.
Judith Newman. 04/05/2025: Two new books offer insight into the autistic people in our lives. Review of: Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism Has Failed Women and Girls / Gina Rippon -- Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum / Daniel Tammet.
Priscilla Gilman. 04/05/2025: Tom Hanks’s daughter seeks answers about her complicated mother. Review of: The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road / E.A. Hanks.
Jacob Brogan. 04/07/2025: This sci-fi novel boldly imagines how we might escape authoritarianism. Review of: Where the Axe Is Buried: A Novel / Ray Nayler.
Hamilton Cain. 04/07/2025: In ‘Terrestrial History,’ humans head for Mars. Review of: Terrestrial History: A Novel / Joe Mungo Reed. ("spans the coming century to reveal four generations of one family and a world in crisis.")
Maureen Corrigan. 04/09/2025: ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a classic. But a century ago, it flopped. "F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, published 100 years ago this week, was not popular in the author’s lifetime. But it has come to embody American aspiration."
Jess Row. 04/10/2025: These short-short stories don’t leave you much time to catch your breath. Review of: Thrilled to Death: Selected Stories / Lynne Tillman.
Gail Vorona Cote. 04/10/2025: Words aren’t enough to describe grief, but they can still be a refuge. Regarding Immemorial (Undelivered Lectures) / Lauren Markham, Mourning Diary / Roland Barthes, Richard Howard translator (2012), The Year of Magical Thinking / Joan Didion (2005), Grief Is for People / Sloane Crosley, Memorial Days: A Memoir / Geraldine Brooks.
Dave Kindy. 04/11/2025: How the American Revolution became a global conflict. Review of: Shots Heard Round the World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War / John Ferling.
Paul Alexander. 04/11/2025: How C. Everett Koop transformed the office of surgeon general. Review of: Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General / Nigel M. de S. Cameron.
Hillary Rosner. 04/12/2025: An ode to looking closely at the nature all around us. Review of: Close to Home: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door / Thor Hansen.
Irene Katz Connelly. 04/14/2025: In ‘Perspectives,’ art and politics clash in Renaissance Italy. Review of: Perspective(s): A Novel / Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor (translator).
Ron Charles. 04/15/2025: Elaine Pagels sifts through history in search of Jesus. Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Kellie Carter Jackson. 04/16/2025: Slavery broke apart families. After Emancipation, how did they reunite? Review of: Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families / Judith Giesberg.
Marin Cogan. 04/16/2025: When a source goes missing, a fact-checker goes on a picaresque quest. Review of: The Fact Checker / Austin Kelley.
Tahneer Oksman. 04/18/2025: How R. Crumb became the most influential living cartoonist. Review of: Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life / Dan Nadel.
Wendy Smith. 04/18/2025: Historical novel ‘The Pretender’ sends a boy into a treacherous world. Review of: The Pretender: A Novel / Jo Harkin.
Case Schwartz. 04/18/2025: The son of a legendary agent tells the story of a vanished Hollywood. Review of: The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood / Matthew Specktor.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/19/2025: Critics have always reminded us: Capitalism is a choice. Review of: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Dana Munro. 04/20/2025: Naval Academy book removals spark effort to make them available again.
Carl Hoffman. 04/21/2025: These elephants’ march through Africa tells a tale of exploitation. Review of: A Training School for Elephants / Sophy Roberts.
Sophia Nguyen. 04/22/2025: ‘Big Chief’ is a sly debut about drama in Native American politics. Review of: Big Chief / John Hickey.
William Booth. 04/23/2025: Shakespeare may not have been a remote husband, new study finds. "The research serves as a counterpoint to an older narrative that imagines William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway mostly living apart in an unhappy marriage."
Perri Klass. 04/23/2025: ‘No More Tears’ exposes a company, and industry, imperiling consumers. Review of: No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson / Gardiner Harris.
Jon Fasman. 04/24/2025: ‘Fear No Pharaoh’ recalls Jewish voices in debate over American slavery. Review of: Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery / Richard Kreitner.
Jacob Brogan. 04/25/2025: A man tries to build a world for his wife. Will she ever arrive? Review of: Your Steps on the Stairs: A Novel / Antonio Muñoz Molina; translator Curtis Bauer.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/25/2025: Why the very American fantasy behind multilevel marketing won’t die. Review of: Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America / Bridget Read.
Stephanie Philips. 04/25/2025: With ‘Matriarch,’ Tina Knowles finally takes center stage. Review of: Matriarch: a memoir / Tina Knowles. (On Amazon as Matriarch Oprah's Book Club a Memoir).
Casey Schwartz. 04/25/2025: With a novel, two sisters set out to reclaim their art-world heritage. Review of: Gabriële / Anne Berest & Claire Berest, translator Tina Kover.
Helen Fessenden. 04/27/2025: ‘The Determined Spy’ charts a CIA legend’s rapid rise and descent. Review of: The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner / Douglas Waller.
Clare McHugh. 04/28/2025: Decades after her death, Princess Diana is still larger than life. Review of: Dianaworld: An Obsession / Edward White.
June Thomas. 04/30/2025: A fresh perspective on the life and films of Pedro Almodóvar. Review of: The Passion of Pedro Almodóvar: A Self-Portrait in Seven Films / James Miller (Columbia University Press).
Harry Bliss. 04/30/2025: What I learned from loving -- and losing -- my dog. Excerpt from: You Can Never Die: A Graphic Memoir / Harry Bliss (Celadon Books).
Sophia Nguyen. 04/30/2025: Why do romance covers all look like this now?
Ron Charles. 04/01/2025: In John Kenney’s comic novel, an obituary writer’s joke goes wrong. Review of: I See You've Called in Dead: A Novel / John Kenney.
Sam Tannenhaus. 04/02/2025: ‘Fight’ recounts the 2024 election but misses its stakes. Review of: Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House / Jonathan Allen & Amie Parnes.
Justin Taylor. 04/03/2025: Katie Kitamura’s ‘Audition’ is a slow-burn psychological thriller. Review of Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/04/2025: Rethinking the roots and contradictions of Trumpism. Review of: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Maura Judkis. 04/04/2025: The restaurant industry tore her down. In her memoir, she hits back. Review of: Cellar Rat: My Life in the Restaurant Underbelly / Hannah Selinger.
Elamin Abdelmahmoud. 04/05/2025: A novelist turns to nonfiction to make a bracing case for empathy. Review of: One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This / Omar El Akkad.
Judith Newman. 04/05/2025: Two new books offer insight into the autistic people in our lives. Review of: Off the Spectrum: Why the Science of Autism Has Failed Women and Girls / Gina Rippon -- Nine Minds: Inner Lives on the Spectrum / Daniel Tammet.
Priscilla Gilman. 04/05/2025: Tom Hanks’s daughter seeks answers about her complicated mother. Review of: The 10: A Memoir of Family and the Open Road / E.A. Hanks.
Jacob Brogan. 04/07/2025: This sci-fi novel boldly imagines how we might escape authoritarianism. Review of: Where the Axe Is Buried: A Novel / Ray Nayler.
Hamilton Cain. 04/07/2025: In ‘Terrestrial History,’ humans head for Mars. Review of: Terrestrial History: A Novel / Joe Mungo Reed. ("spans the coming century to reveal four generations of one family and a world in crisis.")
Maureen Corrigan. 04/09/2025: ‘The Great Gatsby’ is a classic. But a century ago, it flopped. "F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, published 100 years ago this week, was not popular in the author’s lifetime. But it has come to embody American aspiration."
Jess Row. 04/10/2025: These short-short stories don’t leave you much time to catch your breath. Review of: Thrilled to Death: Selected Stories / Lynne Tillman.
Gail Vorona Cote. 04/10/2025: Words aren’t enough to describe grief, but they can still be a refuge. Regarding Immemorial (Undelivered Lectures) / Lauren Markham, Mourning Diary / Roland Barthes, Richard Howard translator (2012), The Year of Magical Thinking / Joan Didion (2005), Grief Is for People / Sloane Crosley, Memorial Days: A Memoir / Geraldine Brooks.
Dave Kindy. 04/11/2025: How the American Revolution became a global conflict. Review of: Shots Heard Round the World: America, Britain, and Europe in the Revolutionary War / John Ferling.
Paul Alexander. 04/11/2025: How C. Everett Koop transformed the office of surgeon general. Review of: Dr. Koop: The Many Lives of the Surgeon General / Nigel M. de S. Cameron.
Hillary Rosner. 04/12/2025: An ode to looking closely at the nature all around us. Review of: Close to Home: The Wonders of Nature Just Outside Your Door / Thor Hansen.
Irene Katz Connelly. 04/14/2025: In ‘Perspectives,’ art and politics clash in Renaissance Italy. Review of: Perspective(s): A Novel / Laurent Binet, Sam Taylor (translator).
Ron Charles. 04/15/2025: Elaine Pagels sifts through history in search of Jesus. Review of: Miracles and Wonder: The Historical Mystery of Jesus / Elaine Pagels.
Kellie Carter Jackson. 04/16/2025: Slavery broke apart families. After Emancipation, how did they reunite? Review of: Last Seen: The Enduring Search by Formerly Enslaved People to Find Their Lost Families / Judith Giesberg.
Marin Cogan. 04/16/2025: When a source goes missing, a fact-checker goes on a picaresque quest. Review of: The Fact Checker / Austin Kelley.
Tahneer Oksman. 04/18/2025: How R. Crumb became the most influential living cartoonist. Review of: Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life / Dan Nadel.
Wendy Smith. 04/18/2025: Historical novel ‘The Pretender’ sends a boy into a treacherous world. Review of: The Pretender: A Novel / Jo Harkin.
Case Schwartz. 04/18/2025: The son of a legendary agent tells the story of a vanished Hollywood. Review of: The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood / Matthew Specktor.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/19/2025: Critics have always reminded us: Capitalism is a choice. Review of: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Dana Munro. 04/20/2025: Naval Academy book removals spark effort to make them available again.
Carl Hoffman. 04/21/2025: These elephants’ march through Africa tells a tale of exploitation. Review of: A Training School for Elephants / Sophy Roberts.
Sophia Nguyen. 04/22/2025: ‘Big Chief’ is a sly debut about drama in Native American politics. Review of: Big Chief / John Hickey.
William Booth. 04/23/2025: Shakespeare may not have been a remote husband, new study finds. "The research serves as a counterpoint to an older narrative that imagines William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway mostly living apart in an unhappy marriage."
Perri Klass. 04/23/2025: ‘No More Tears’ exposes a company, and industry, imperiling consumers. Review of: No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson / Gardiner Harris.
Jon Fasman. 04/24/2025: ‘Fear No Pharaoh’ recalls Jewish voices in debate over American slavery. Review of: Fear No Pharaoh: American Jews, the Civil War, and the Fight to End Slavery / Richard Kreitner.
Jacob Brogan. 04/25/2025: A man tries to build a world for his wife. Will she ever arrive? Review of: Your Steps on the Stairs: A Novel / Antonio Muñoz Molina; translator Curtis Bauer.
Becca Rothfeld. 04/25/2025: Why the very American fantasy behind multilevel marketing won’t die. Review of: Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America / Bridget Read.
Stephanie Philips. 04/25/2025: With ‘Matriarch,’ Tina Knowles finally takes center stage. Review of: Matriarch: a memoir / Tina Knowles. (On Amazon as Matriarch Oprah's Book Club a Memoir).
Casey Schwartz. 04/25/2025: With a novel, two sisters set out to reclaim their art-world heritage. Review of: Gabriële / Anne Berest & Claire Berest, translator Tina Kover.
Helen Fessenden. 04/27/2025: ‘The Determined Spy’ charts a CIA legend’s rapid rise and descent. Review of: The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner / Douglas Waller.
Clare McHugh. 04/28/2025: Decades after her death, Princess Diana is still larger than life. Review of: Dianaworld: An Obsession / Edward White.
June Thomas. 04/30/2025: A fresh perspective on the life and films of Pedro Almodóvar. Review of: The Passion of Pedro Almodóvar: A Self-Portrait in Seven Films / James Miller (Columbia University Press).
Harry Bliss. 04/30/2025: What I learned from loving -- and losing -- my dog. Excerpt from: You Can Never Die: A Graphic Memoir / Harry Bliss (Celadon Books).
Sophia Nguyen. 04/30/2025: Why do romance covers all look like this now?
19featherbear
Updates 04/06/2025:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
20featherbear
Denise Lyons. Library Journal, 04/01/2025: Lessons in Resilience: Libraries’ Roles in Disaster Preparedness and Recovery.
21featherbear
Jesse Kornbluth, 1946-2025
Penelope Green. NYT, 04/06/2025: Jesse Kornbluth, Magazine Writer Who Covered Everything, Dies at 79. "He reported on the highs and lows of culture in the pages of Vanity Fair and elsewhere. He also wrote seven books of nonfiction and two novels."
"He contributed to, among many other publications, The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and New Times, an alternative biweekly newsmagazine published in the 1970s.
He also worked as a ghostwriter, wrote screenplays (still unproduced) and a play about Matisse, and wrote or co-wrote a number of nonfiction books, including “Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken” (1992), a fairly sympathetic biography of the fallen junk-bond king that grew out of a profile he had written for Vanity Fair, to which he contributed for nearly a decade.
“Jesse was the expert on everything,” Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair, said by email, “or could sound like one.”
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/kornbluthjesse
Penelope Green. NYT, 04/06/2025: Jesse Kornbluth, Magazine Writer Who Covered Everything, Dies at 79. "He reported on the highs and lows of culture in the pages of Vanity Fair and elsewhere. He also wrote seven books of nonfiction and two novels."
"He contributed to, among many other publications, The New York Times Magazine, New York magazine, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest and New Times, an alternative biweekly newsmagazine published in the 1970s.
He also worked as a ghostwriter, wrote screenplays (still unproduced) and a play about Matisse, and wrote or co-wrote a number of nonfiction books, including “Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken” (1992), a fairly sympathetic biography of the fallen junk-bond king that grew out of a profile he had written for Vanity Fair, to which he contributed for nearly a decade.
“Jesse was the expert on everything,” Tina Brown, the former editor of Vanity Fair, said by email, “or could sound like one.”
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/kornbluthjesse
22featherbear
Updates 04/07/2025
Lots of retroactive updates to WaPo April >18 featherbear: & NYT >15 featherbear:
Couple to Guardian >9 featherbear: & LARB >4 featherbear:
Lots of retroactive updates to WaPo April >18 featherbear: & NYT >15 featherbear:
Couple to Guardian >9 featherbear: & LARB >4 featherbear:
23featherbear
NYRB Online April 24 2025
Literature
Laura Marsh. Shared Delusions. Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Jesse McCarthy. Return to My Native Land. "This essay is expanded and significantly adapted from the foreword to a new edition of Vincent O. Carter’s Such Sweet Thunder, published by Pushkin Press this year."
Merve Emre. An Unsentimental Education. "Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons summons the romantic vision of the university as an unblighted Eden to mock it through the downfall of one of its deceived mortals."
Thomas Powers. A Mighty Theme. "Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is “the Moby-Dick of the plains”—the great book about the American West." McMurtry's career in review, with reference to Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry / edited by George Getschow -- Books: A Memoir -- In a Narrow Grave -- Literary Life -- Lonesome Dove -- Paradise -- Roads: Driving America’s Great Highways -- Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen -- The Last Picture Show.
Vivian Gornick. The 176-Year Argument. "At the University of Chicago all they wanted to know was, What’s the theory? At Yale all they wanted to know was, What’s the technique? At City College of New York all they wanted to know was, How does this relate to real life?"
Philosophy
Peter Singer. Circling the Good. Review of: Moral Feelings, Moral Reality, and Moral Progress / Thomas Nagel.
Religion
Erin Magiaque. Vexed by Sex. Review of: Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Science & Technology
Jenny Uglow. Lunar Myths and Mysteries. Review of: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter / edited by Matthew Shindell, with a foreword by Dava Sobel -- Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are / Rebecca Boyle.
Francine Prose. Poisoning the Family Tree. "Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium is an account of his search for information about his great-grandfather, a German Jewish scientist who helped develop chemical weapons for the Nazis." Full citation: Children of Radium: a buried inheritance.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Fara Dabhoiwala. Charting an Unheroic Past. Review of: Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism / Catherine Hall.
Francisco Cantú. Legacies of Japanese American Incarceration. Review of: The Afterlife Is Letting Go / Brandon Shimoda.
Benjamin Nathans. The Enigma of George Kennan. Review of: Kennan: A Life Between Worlds / Frank Costigliola.
Omer Bartov. ‘Infinite License.’ Review essay referencing: Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism / Rachel Shabi -- Gaza Faces History / Enzo Traverso, translated from the French by Willard Wood -- Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning / Peter Beinart -- The World After Gaza / Pankaj Mishra -- To Be a Jewish State: Zionism as the New Judaism / Yaacov Yadgar -- What Does Israel Fear from Palestine? / Raja Shehadeh -- Occupied from Within: A Journey to the Roots of the Israeli Constitutional Coup / Michael Sfard (Berl Katznelson Center) -- The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine / Margaret Olin and David Shulman (Intellect) -- The Message / Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide / Atef Abu Saif, with a foreword by Chris Hedges -- Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza / Didier Fassin, translated from the French by Gregory Elliott.
David Cole. Academic Freedom in Peril. Review of: Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right / David M. Rabban -- You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms / Keith E. Whittington.
Fintan O'Toole. Shredding the Postwar Order. (Essay: "Donald Trump is reshaping relations between Europe and the US more dramatically than at any time since World War II.")
Literature
Laura Marsh. Shared Delusions. Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
Jesse McCarthy. Return to My Native Land. "This essay is expanded and significantly adapted from the foreword to a new edition of Vincent O. Carter’s Such Sweet Thunder, published by Pushkin Press this year."
Merve Emre. An Unsentimental Education. "Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons summons the romantic vision of the university as an unblighted Eden to mock it through the downfall of one of its deceived mortals."
Thomas Powers. A Mighty Theme. "Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is “the Moby-Dick of the plains”—the great book about the American West." McMurtry's career in review, with reference to Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry / edited by George Getschow -- Books: A Memoir -- In a Narrow Grave -- Literary Life -- Lonesome Dove -- Paradise -- Roads: Driving America’s Great Highways -- Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen -- The Last Picture Show.
Vivian Gornick. The 176-Year Argument. "At the University of Chicago all they wanted to know was, What’s the theory? At Yale all they wanted to know was, What’s the technique? At City College of New York all they wanted to know was, How does this relate to real life?"
Philosophy
Peter Singer. Circling the Good. Review of: Moral Feelings, Moral Reality, and Moral Progress / Thomas Nagel.
Religion
Erin Magiaque. Vexed by Sex. Review of: Lower Than the Angels: A History of Sex and Christianity / Diarmaid MacCulloch.
Science & Technology
Jenny Uglow. Lunar Myths and Mysteries. Review of: Lunar: A History of the Moon in Myths, Maps, and Matter / edited by Matthew Shindell, with a foreword by Dava Sobel -- Our Moon: How Earth’s Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are / Rebecca Boyle.
Francine Prose. Poisoning the Family Tree. "Joe Dunthorne’s Children of Radium is an account of his search for information about his great-grandfather, a German Jewish scientist who helped develop chemical weapons for the Nazis." Full citation: Children of Radium: a buried inheritance.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Fara Dabhoiwala. Charting an Unheroic Past. Review of: Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism / Catherine Hall.
Francisco Cantú. Legacies of Japanese American Incarceration. Review of: The Afterlife Is Letting Go / Brandon Shimoda.
Benjamin Nathans. The Enigma of George Kennan. Review of: Kennan: A Life Between Worlds / Frank Costigliola.
Omer Bartov. ‘Infinite License.’ Review essay referencing: Off-White: The Truth About Antisemitism / Rachel Shabi -- Gaza Faces History / Enzo Traverso, translated from the French by Willard Wood -- Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning / Peter Beinart -- The World After Gaza / Pankaj Mishra -- To Be a Jewish State: Zionism as the New Judaism / Yaacov Yadgar -- What Does Israel Fear from Palestine? / Raja Shehadeh -- Occupied from Within: A Journey to the Roots of the Israeli Constitutional Coup / Michael Sfard (Berl Katznelson Center) -- The Bitter Landscapes of Palestine / Margaret Olin and David Shulman (Intellect) -- The Message / Ta-Nehisi Coates -- Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide / Atef Abu Saif, with a foreword by Chris Hedges -- Moral Abdication: How the World Failed to Stop the Destruction of Gaza / Didier Fassin, translated from the French by Gregory Elliott.
David Cole. Academic Freedom in Peril. Review of: Academic Freedom: From Professional Norm to First Amendment Right / David M. Rabban -- You Can’t Teach That! The Battle Over University Classrooms / Keith E. Whittington.
Fintan O'Toole. Shredding the Postwar Order. (Essay: "Donald Trump is reshaping relations between Europe and the US more dramatically than at any time since World War II.")
24featherbear
Public Books April 2025
Amit Baishya, interviewing Siddhartha Deb. 04/08/2025: Wings, Angels, Tentacles: Talking with Siddhartha Deb. Regarding The Light at the End of the World / Siddhartha Deb (2024).
Andrew Bruggeman interviewing Steven Conn. 04/09/2025: America’s Pernicious Rural Myth: An Interview with Steven Conn. Regarding Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t / Steven Conn.
Andrew Newman. 04/10/2025: Gatsby @ 100: American Classrooms, American Dreams?
Milan Terlunen. 04/15/2025: Scholars Have Lost the Plot! Regarding: On Close Reading / John Guillory -- The Natural Laws of Plot: How Things Happen in Realist Novels / Yoon Sun Lee (University of Pennsylvania Press).
Harry Stecopoulos 04/23/2025: “Poetry City”: Iowa City, Iowa.
Emiliano Aguilar. 04/24/2025: Borders May Change, But People Remain. Review of: Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship / Omar Valerio-Jiménez.
Feroz Rather. 04/29/2025: Aria Aber’s Defiant Love Letter to Berlin. Review of: Good Girl: a novel / Aria Aber.
Amit Baishya, interviewing Siddhartha Deb. 04/08/2025: Wings, Angels, Tentacles: Talking with Siddhartha Deb. Regarding The Light at the End of the World / Siddhartha Deb (2024).
Andrew Bruggeman interviewing Steven Conn. 04/09/2025: America’s Pernicious Rural Myth: An Interview with Steven Conn. Regarding Lies of the Land: Seeing Rural America for What It Is—and Isn’t / Steven Conn.
Andrew Newman. 04/10/2025: Gatsby @ 100: American Classrooms, American Dreams?
Milan Terlunen. 04/15/2025: Scholars Have Lost the Plot! Regarding: On Close Reading / John Guillory -- The Natural Laws of Plot: How Things Happen in Realist Novels / Yoon Sun Lee (University of Pennsylvania Press).
Harry Stecopoulos 04/23/2025: “Poetry City”: Iowa City, Iowa.
Emiliano Aguilar. 04/24/2025: Borders May Change, But People Remain. Review of: Remembering Conquest: Mexican Americans, Memory, and Citizenship / Omar Valerio-Jiménez.
Feroz Rather. 04/29/2025: Aria Aber’s Defiant Love Letter to Berlin. Review of: Good Girl: a novel / Aria Aber.
25featherbear
April 8 updates & additions:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear: (review essay on James C. Scott)
NYRB April 24 >23 featherbear:
Public books >24 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear: (review essay on James C. Scott)
NYRB April 24 >23 featherbear:
Public books >24 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
26featherbear
TLS April 11, 2025|No. 6367
Featured
Harry Cochrane. Mission impossible: Can English translations ever measure up to Dante’s epic poem? Review of 2 translations of The Divine Comedy, a reissue of Charles Singleton's (Princeton University Press, originally 1970-75), a new one by Michael Palma (Norton), plus Dante's Divine Comedy: A Biography / Joseph Luzzi.
Aida Amoako. All the devils are here: When mankind encounters demons. Review of: THE PENGUIN BOOK OF DEMONS / Scott G. Bruce, editor.
Misha Glenny. The new robber barons: Where the libertarian right meets the libertarian left. Review of: OWNED: How tech billionaires on the right bought the loudest voices on the left / Eoin Higgins.
Norma Clarke. Battered coasts: The precarious shorelines of Britain, Wales and the Shetlands. Review of: THE RESTLESS COAST: A journey around the edge of Britain / Roger Morgan-Grenville (Icon) -- SEASCAPE: Notes from a changing coastline / Matthew Yeomans -- THE SHETLAND WAY: Community and climate crisis on my father’s islands / Marianne Brown.
Mary Beard's blog from the TLS current landing page. Presidents and golf.
Literature & Bibliography
Tim Parks. A vocation to read: Hidden gems on overflowing bookshelves. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: BOOKISH: How reading shapes our lives / Lucy Mangan.
Mairéad McAuley. Leading the hortus to culture: The aesthetic Roman landscape where art and poetry flourished. Review of: ANCIENT ROMAN LITERARY GARDENS: Gender, genre, and geopoetics / K. Sara Myers (Oxford University Press).
Margaret Drabble. In overdrive: Dickens’s ‘giddy turmoil.’ Review of: DICKENS THE ENCHANTER: Inside the explosive mind of the great storyteller / Peter Conrad ( Bloomsbury Continuum).
Rod Mengham. Dante in Essex: Putting British sinners in a Mersea Island purgatory. Review of DANTE’S PURGATORIO / Philip Terry (Carcanet).
Mia Levitin. Another day in November: A rip in the fabric of time causes a woman to relive an eternal day. Review of: ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME, I & ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME, II / Solvej Balle; translated by Barbara J. Haveland.
Norma Clarke. Gazers from the shore: A perilous dinghy crossing amid a sea of indifference. Review of: SMALL BOAT / Vincent Delecroix; translated by Helen Stevenson.
David Gallagher. Better to be crazy: Two fictional retellings of rebellious women in repressive Latin American society. Review of: Y ENTONCES TERESA / Arturo Fontaine -- LOS NOMBRES DE FELIZA / Juan Gabriel Vásquez.
In Brief Review of: AN ARBITRARY LIGHT BULB / Ian Duhig. (Poems)
In Brief Review of: ROOM ON THE SEA / André Aciman. (novel)
Arts
Keith Hopper. Godamned good: Hollywood’s ‘woman’s director.’ Review of: GEORGE CUKOR’S PEOPLE: Acting for a master director / Joseph McBride.
Andrew Holter. Between classes: How a teacher nurtured the talents of Richard Burton, a miner’s son. Review of the biofilm Mr Burton.
Bryan Karetnyk. Never tremble!: A cult graphic series about class struggle in Shogun-era Japan. Review of: THE LEGEND OF KAMUI Volume I / Shirato Sanpei; translated by Richard Rubinger with Noriko Rubinger.
Lucy Scholes. All too realistic: Alienation and absurdity from a master of the manga ‘I-novel.’ Review of: OBA ELECTROPLATING FACTORY / Yoshiharu Tsuge; translated by Ryan Holmberg.
Rod Mengham. Solitude and ghost music: The powerful and mysterious art of Noah Davis. Review of the exhibition NOAH DAVIS, Barbican Art Gallery, London, until May 11.
Amber Massie-Blomfield. Fleshing out stories: How the visual arts are represented in the theatre. Review of: THE ART GALLERY ON STAGE: New vistas on contemporary British playwriting / Mariacristina Cavecchi (Bloomsbury).
In Brief Review of: DEUX FILLES NUES / Luz ("The life story of a painting from its own perspective").
Science & Technology
Veronica Strang. Rights of passage: The case for rivers as living beings. Review of: IS A RIVER ALIVE? / Robert Macfarlane.
In Brief Review of: BORN OF FIRE AND RAIN: Journey into a Pacific coastal forest / M.L. Herring.
Religion
Andrew George. Handed down from on high: A Loeb-style translation of a Babylonian epic. Review of: ENUMA ELISH: The Babylonian epic of creation / Johannes Haubold, Sophus Helle, Enrique Jiménez, Selena Wisnom, editors.
History, Politics, Society, Culture, Travel
Emma Nicholson. Warlords and rivals: The commanders in the deathly struggle between Rome and Carthage. Review of: HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO: Parallel lives / Simon Hornblower.
Martin Meredith. Before the Scramble: African innovation and European intervention. Review of: THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION: A history of the long nineteenth century / Richard Reid.
Reuben Loffman. Merchant adventures: Nigerian commerce thrived before British colonization. Review of: CAPITALISM IN THE COLONIES: African merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931 / A. G. Hopkins.
Anna Katharina Schaffner. Stuff as dreams are made on: How sleep stimulated the scientific and literary imagination. Review of: SLEEP WORKS: Experiments in science and literature, 1899–1929 / Sebastian P. Klinger.
Sofia Cumming. The Nazi invasion of sleep: Dreams under the dictatorship needed no interpretation. Review of: THE THIRD REICH OF DREAMS: The nightmares of a nation / Charlotte Beradt; translated by Damion Searls.
Michael Holzman. Never a borrower be: Anglo-American antagonism over war debt. Review of: MELLON VS. CHURCHILL: The untold story of treasury titans at war / Jill Eicher.
Rana Mitter. Bombs away with LeMay: Why were atomic weapons dropped on Japan? Review of: RAIN OF RUIN: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the surrender of Japan / Richard Overy.
Mark Mazower. Helping hand of fate: A Holocaust survivor’s memoir from Greece. Review of: COURAGE AND COMPASSION: A Jewish boyhood in German-occupied Greece / Tony Molho.
Philip Ball. You can’t look away: On the rise of ‘attention capitalism.’ Review of: THE SIREN’S CALL: How attention became the world’s most endangered resource / Chris Hayes.
Pablo Scheffer. Venice with bicycles: A sympathetic introduction to Amsterdam. Review of: THE INVENTION OF AMSTERDAM: A history of Europe’s greatest city in ten walks / Ben Coates (Scribe).
Martin Beagles. ¡Camelón, plis, camelón!: A Spanish writer’s reflections on living the English way. Review of: VIVIENDO A LA INGLESA / Julio Camba.
In Brief Review of: RADIO TREASON: The trials of Lord Haw-Haw, the British voice of Nazi Germany / Rebecca West.
In Brief Review of: JEREMY CATTO: A portrait of the quintessential Oxford don / David Vaiani.
Featured
Harry Cochrane. Mission impossible: Can English translations ever measure up to Dante’s epic poem? Review of 2 translations of The Divine Comedy, a reissue of Charles Singleton's (Princeton University Press, originally 1970-75), a new one by Michael Palma (Norton), plus Dante's Divine Comedy: A Biography / Joseph Luzzi.
Aida Amoako. All the devils are here: When mankind encounters demons. Review of: THE PENGUIN BOOK OF DEMONS / Scott G. Bruce, editor.
Misha Glenny. The new robber barons: Where the libertarian right meets the libertarian left. Review of: OWNED: How tech billionaires on the right bought the loudest voices on the left / Eoin Higgins.
Norma Clarke. Battered coasts: The precarious shorelines of Britain, Wales and the Shetlands. Review of: THE RESTLESS COAST: A journey around the edge of Britain / Roger Morgan-Grenville (Icon) -- SEASCAPE: Notes from a changing coastline / Matthew Yeomans -- THE SHETLAND WAY: Community and climate crisis on my father’s islands / Marianne Brown.
Mary Beard's blog from the TLS current landing page. Presidents and golf.
Literature & Bibliography
Tim Parks. A vocation to read: Hidden gems on overflowing bookshelves. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: BOOKISH: How reading shapes our lives / Lucy Mangan.
Mairéad McAuley. Leading the hortus to culture: The aesthetic Roman landscape where art and poetry flourished. Review of: ANCIENT ROMAN LITERARY GARDENS: Gender, genre, and geopoetics / K. Sara Myers (Oxford University Press).
Margaret Drabble. In overdrive: Dickens’s ‘giddy turmoil.’ Review of: DICKENS THE ENCHANTER: Inside the explosive mind of the great storyteller / Peter Conrad ( Bloomsbury Continuum).
Rod Mengham. Dante in Essex: Putting British sinners in a Mersea Island purgatory. Review of DANTE’S PURGATORIO / Philip Terry (Carcanet).
Mia Levitin. Another day in November: A rip in the fabric of time causes a woman to relive an eternal day. Review of: ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME, I & ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME, II / Solvej Balle; translated by Barbara J. Haveland.
Norma Clarke. Gazers from the shore: A perilous dinghy crossing amid a sea of indifference. Review of: SMALL BOAT / Vincent Delecroix; translated by Helen Stevenson.
David Gallagher. Better to be crazy: Two fictional retellings of rebellious women in repressive Latin American society. Review of: Y ENTONCES TERESA / Arturo Fontaine -- LOS NOMBRES DE FELIZA / Juan Gabriel Vásquez.
In Brief Review of: AN ARBITRARY LIGHT BULB / Ian Duhig. (Poems)
In Brief Review of: ROOM ON THE SEA / André Aciman. (novel)
Arts
Keith Hopper. Godamned good: Hollywood’s ‘woman’s director.’ Review of: GEORGE CUKOR’S PEOPLE: Acting for a master director / Joseph McBride.
Andrew Holter. Between classes: How a teacher nurtured the talents of Richard Burton, a miner’s son. Review of the biofilm Mr Burton.
Bryan Karetnyk. Never tremble!: A cult graphic series about class struggle in Shogun-era Japan. Review of: THE LEGEND OF KAMUI Volume I / Shirato Sanpei; translated by Richard Rubinger with Noriko Rubinger.
Lucy Scholes. All too realistic: Alienation and absurdity from a master of the manga ‘I-novel.’ Review of: OBA ELECTROPLATING FACTORY / Yoshiharu Tsuge; translated by Ryan Holmberg.
Rod Mengham. Solitude and ghost music: The powerful and mysterious art of Noah Davis. Review of the exhibition NOAH DAVIS, Barbican Art Gallery, London, until May 11.
Amber Massie-Blomfield. Fleshing out stories: How the visual arts are represented in the theatre. Review of: THE ART GALLERY ON STAGE: New vistas on contemporary British playwriting / Mariacristina Cavecchi (Bloomsbury).
In Brief Review of: DEUX FILLES NUES / Luz ("The life story of a painting from its own perspective").
Science & Technology
Veronica Strang. Rights of passage: The case for rivers as living beings. Review of: IS A RIVER ALIVE? / Robert Macfarlane.
In Brief Review of: BORN OF FIRE AND RAIN: Journey into a Pacific coastal forest / M.L. Herring.
Religion
Andrew George. Handed down from on high: A Loeb-style translation of a Babylonian epic. Review of: ENUMA ELISH: The Babylonian epic of creation / Johannes Haubold, Sophus Helle, Enrique Jiménez, Selena Wisnom, editors.
History, Politics, Society, Culture, Travel
Emma Nicholson. Warlords and rivals: The commanders in the deathly struggle between Rome and Carthage. Review of: HANNIBAL AND SCIPIO: Parallel lives / Simon Hornblower.
Martin Meredith. Before the Scramble: African innovation and European intervention. Review of: THE AFRICAN REVOLUTION: A history of the long nineteenth century / Richard Reid.
Reuben Loffman. Merchant adventures: Nigerian commerce thrived before British colonization. Review of: CAPITALISM IN THE COLONIES: African merchants in Lagos, 1851–1931 / A. G. Hopkins.
Anna Katharina Schaffner. Stuff as dreams are made on: How sleep stimulated the scientific and literary imagination. Review of: SLEEP WORKS: Experiments in science and literature, 1899–1929 / Sebastian P. Klinger.
Sofia Cumming. The Nazi invasion of sleep: Dreams under the dictatorship needed no interpretation. Review of: THE THIRD REICH OF DREAMS: The nightmares of a nation / Charlotte Beradt; translated by Damion Searls.
Michael Holzman. Never a borrower be: Anglo-American antagonism over war debt. Review of: MELLON VS. CHURCHILL: The untold story of treasury titans at war / Jill Eicher.
Rana Mitter. Bombs away with LeMay: Why were atomic weapons dropped on Japan? Review of: RAIN OF RUIN: Tokyo, Hiroshima and the surrender of Japan / Richard Overy.
Mark Mazower. Helping hand of fate: A Holocaust survivor’s memoir from Greece. Review of: COURAGE AND COMPASSION: A Jewish boyhood in German-occupied Greece / Tony Molho.
Philip Ball. You can’t look away: On the rise of ‘attention capitalism.’ Review of: THE SIREN’S CALL: How attention became the world’s most endangered resource / Chris Hayes.
Pablo Scheffer. Venice with bicycles: A sympathetic introduction to Amsterdam. Review of: THE INVENTION OF AMSTERDAM: A history of Europe’s greatest city in ten walks / Ben Coates (Scribe).
Martin Beagles. ¡Camelón, plis, camelón!: A Spanish writer’s reflections on living the English way. Review of: VIVIENDO A LA INGLESA / Julio Camba.
In Brief Review of: RADIO TREASON: The trials of Lord Haw-Haw, the British voice of Nazi Germany / Rebecca West.
In Brief Review of: JEREMY CATTO: A portrait of the quintessential Oxford don / David Vaiani.
27featherbear
LitHub April 2025
Daniel Mendelsohn. 04/09/2025: On the Opaque Origins and Tumultuous Ancient History of Homer’s Odyssey.
Vaunda Michaux Nielson. 04/09/2025: How Lewis Michaux Channeled a Passion For Knowledge Into Building His Harlem Bookstore.
Sam Weller. 04/28/2025: 75 Years Ago, The Martian Chronicles Legitimized Science Fiction. Regarding The Martian Chronicles / Ray Bradbury.
Alok A. Khorana. 04/28/2025: A Deeply Globalized Ancient World. Regarding The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World / William Dalrymple.
Daniel Mendelsohn. 04/09/2025: On the Opaque Origins and Tumultuous Ancient History of Homer’s Odyssey.
Vaunda Michaux Nielson. 04/09/2025: How Lewis Michaux Channeled a Passion For Knowledge Into Building His Harlem Bookstore.
Sam Weller. 04/28/2025: 75 Years Ago, The Martian Chronicles Legitimized Science Fiction. Regarding The Martian Chronicles / Ray Bradbury.
Alok A. Khorana. 04/28/2025: A Deeply Globalized Ancient World. Regarding The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World / William Dalrymple.
28featherbear
New Criterion April 2025
Gary Saul Morson. 04/2025: Ambassador of dreams. Regarding Poet in the New World / Czesław Miłosz.
Gary Saul Morson. 04/2025: Ambassador of dreams. Regarding Poet in the New World / Czesław Miłosz.
29featherbear
Quillette April 2025
Brian Stewart. 04/10/2025: Victims of Realism. Review of: The Folly of Realism / Alexander Vindman.
Brian Stewart. 04/10/2025: Victims of Realism. Review of: The Folly of Realism / Alexander Vindman.
30featherbear
April 11 updates:
The Critic >7 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear: (04/08-04/11)
WaPo >18 featherbear: (4/10-4/11)
The Critic >7 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear: (04/08-04/11)
WaPo >18 featherbear: (4/10-4/11)
32featherbear
Mario Vargas Llosa, 1936-2025
Simon Romero. NYT, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel-Winning Peruvian Novelist, Dies at 89. "Mr. Vargas Llosa, who ran for Peru’s presidency in 1990 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, transformed episodes from his personal life into books that reverberated far beyond the borders of his native country." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED
Dwight Garner. NYT, 04/13/2025: Farewell to the Last Writer of the Latin American Boom. "The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa was the world’s savviest and most accomplished political novelist." (I didn't share this intentionally but it may be thru some glitch)
John Otis. WaPo, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, luminary of Spanish-speaking literature, dies at 89. "He helped lead the Latin American “boom” of literary fiction in the 1960s, a burst of creativity and stylistic experimentation that produced some of the era’s most-acclaimed novels."
Franklin BriceÑo and CiarÁn Giles | AP. WaPo, 04/13/2025: Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89.
The AP obit might be a Post duplicate error, appearing with minutes of the official WaPo obit by Otis, but the AP does have 2 paragraphs I wanted to preserve:
"In a famous incident in Mexico City in 1976, Vargas Llosa punched fellow Nobel Prize winner and ex-friend García Márquez, whom he later ridiculed as “Castro’s courtesan.” It was never clear whether the fight was over politics or a personal dispute, as neither writer ever wanted to discuss it publicly.
"As he slowly turned his political trajectory toward free-market conservatism, Vargas Llosa lost the support of many of his Latin American literary contemporaries and attracted much criticism even from admirers of his work."
Richard Lea & Sian Cain. Guardian, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, giant of Latin American literature, dies aged 89.
Ilan Stavans. Atlantic, 04/15/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Question for the Trump Era.
Marie Arana. WaPo, 04/17/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa was a daring truth-teller. He was also my friend. "The celebrated Peruvian writer lived a dynamic life and was still going strong in his 80s."
Vargas Llosa's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/llosamariovargas
Simon Romero. NYT, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel-Winning Peruvian Novelist, Dies at 89. "Mr. Vargas Llosa, who ran for Peru’s presidency in 1990 and won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2010, transformed episodes from his personal life into books that reverberated far beyond the borders of his native country." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED
Dwight Garner. NYT, 04/13/2025: Farewell to the Last Writer of the Latin American Boom. "The Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa was the world’s savviest and most accomplished political novelist." (I didn't share this intentionally but it may be thru some glitch)
John Otis. WaPo, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, luminary of Spanish-speaking literature, dies at 89. "He helped lead the Latin American “boom” of literary fiction in the 1960s, a burst of creativity and stylistic experimentation that produced some of the era’s most-acclaimed novels."
Franklin BriceÑo and CiarÁn Giles | AP. WaPo, 04/13/2025: Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel literature laureate, dies at 89.
The AP obit might be a Post duplicate error, appearing with minutes of the official WaPo obit by Otis, but the AP does have 2 paragraphs I wanted to preserve:
"In a famous incident in Mexico City in 1976, Vargas Llosa punched fellow Nobel Prize winner and ex-friend García Márquez, whom he later ridiculed as “Castro’s courtesan.” It was never clear whether the fight was over politics or a personal dispute, as neither writer ever wanted to discuss it publicly.
"As he slowly turned his political trajectory toward free-market conservatism, Vargas Llosa lost the support of many of his Latin American literary contemporaries and attracted much criticism even from admirers of his work."
Richard Lea & Sian Cain. Guardian, 04/13/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa, giant of Latin American literature, dies aged 89.
Ilan Stavans. Atlantic, 04/15/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa’s Question for the Trump Era.
Marie Arana. WaPo, 04/17/2025: Mario Vargas Llosa was a daring truth-teller. He was also my friend. "The celebrated Peruvian writer lived a dynamic life and was still going strong in his 80s."
Vargas Llosa's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/llosamariovargas
33featherbear
The Verge April 2025
Decca Muldowney. 04/11/20225: ‘Book Boyfriends’ and ‘Shadow Daddies’: the men cashing in on romantasy. "From BookTok to IRL balls, these performers embody beloved characters."
Decca Muldowney. 04/11/20225: ‘Book Boyfriends’ and ‘Shadow Daddies’: the men cashing in on romantasy. "From BookTok to IRL balls, these performers embody beloved characters."
34featherbear
Yale Review April 2025
Sam Huber. 04/15/2025: Andrea Long Chu's Problem with Authority. Review of : Authority: Essays / Andrea Long Chu.
Meghan O'Rourke. 04/23/2025: A View from Here: Trump's attacks on higher education and the work of a little magazine.
Sam Huber. 04/15/2025: Andrea Long Chu's Problem with Authority. Review of : Authority: Essays / Andrea Long Chu.
Meghan O'Rourke. 04/23/2025: A View from Here: Trump's attacks on higher education and the work of a little magazine.
35featherbear
April 15 updates:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
LARB >4 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
Guardian >9 featherbear:
LARB >4 featherbear:
New Yorker >17 featherbear:
NYT >15 featherbear:
Public Books >24 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
36featherbear
Retro from March:
Joel Whitney. thebeliever, 03/27/2025: The Making of the Buru Quartet. "How Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia’s preeminent novelist, managed to compose his masterpiece while exiled on a remote prison island."
Joel Whitney. thebeliever, 03/27/2025: The Making of the Buru Quartet. "How Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia’s preeminent novelist, managed to compose his masterpiece while exiled on a remote prison island."
37featherbear
TLS April 18, 2025|No. 6368
Featured
Nikhil Venkatesh. Trying too hard: The elusive pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number. Review of: UTILITARIANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE: Re-envisioning planetary happiness / Bart Schultz (Polity).
Lindsey Hilsum. Where to?: The future of Greenland. (Essay)
Adam Sutcliffe. A light unto the nationalists?: How non-western countries view Israel and the Palestinians. Review of: THE WORLD AFTER GAZA / Pankaj Mishra -- BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA: A reckoning / Peter Beinart -- HOW ISN’T IT GOING?: Conversations after October 7 / Delphine Horvilleur; translated by Lisa Appignanesi (Europa Compass)-- EVERYDAY JEWS: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are / Keith Kahn Harris (Icon).
Peter Holland. The playhouse is the thing: Shakespeare’s apprenticeship as actor and dramatist at the Theatre. Review of: THE DREAM FACTORY: London’s first playhouse and the making of William Shakespeare / Daniel Swift (Yale University Press).
Mary Beard from her blog on the TLS current issue landing page. Art in the country.
Literature & Bibliography
Lois Potter. Golden buttons on the bough: An argument for Shakespeare’s exceptional status. Review of: SHAKESPEARE, DRAMATIC POETRY AND VALUE / MacDonald P. Jackson (Routledge).
Margreta De Grazia. Order on chaos: The ‘sustaining’ fictions of Shakespearean characters. Review of: SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGIC ART / Rhodri Lewis.
Boris Dralyuk. Life and death issues: The ‘vivifying shock’ of a Polish poet who captured his times. Review of: Selected Poems / Zbigniew Herbert (Penguin: Note both TLS & Amazon leave out the name of the editor; shoddy work, in addition Amazon leaves out the publisher name; fwiw ISBN 978-0241654613)
Sophy Roberts. Under covers: Literary holes in the Iron Curtain. Review of: THE CIA BOOK CLUB: The best-kept secret of the Cold War / Charlie English (note: US subtitle: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature).
Katherine J. Chen. No ordinary monk: A fictional reimagining of the legend of Pope Joan. Review of: RAPTURE / Emily Maguire.
Ian Cawood. Another honourable member: Two novels of liberal prime ministers and their lively associates. Review of: PRECIPICE / Robert Harris -- GREEN INK / Stephen May (Swift Press).
Norma Clarke. Cabin fever: A tale of toxic adventurers on eighteenth-century seas. Review of: EDEN’S SHORE / Oisín Fagan.
Miranda France. More imaginary than most: Nostalgia, guilt and Heimat for Spain’s Cameroonian Germans. Review of: LOS ALEMANES / Sergio del Molino.
In Brief Review of: THE FACE IN THE WELL / Rebecca Watts (Poems).
In Brief Review of: DEATH TAKES ME / Cristina Rivera Garza; translated by Sarah Booker and Robin Myers ("A murder mystery relayed in lipstick, nail varnish and ‘castrated letters’")
In Brief Review of: SCATTERED AND FUGITIVE THINGS: How Black collectors created archives and remade history / Laura E. Helton.
Arts
Marina Warner. Mysteries and grace: The beauty and humanity of fourteenth-century Sienese art. Review of the exhibition SIENA: The rise of painting, 1300–50, National Gallery, London, until June 22 & the catalog, Joanna Cannon, editor.
Muriel Zagha. Calf love: Louise Courvoisier’s portrait of rural France. Review of the film HOLY COW.
Anna Aslanyan. Theatricality exposed: A new production of an Ionesco classic. Review of Eugène Ionesco's play RHINOCEROS, Almeida Theatre, London, until April 26.
Bradley A. Gorski. Escape to an alternative country: How artists found community and freedom under the Soviets. Review of: THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF SOVIET UNDERGROUND CULTURE / Mark Lipovetsky (Oxford University Press).
In Brief Review of: BOX OFFICE POISON: Hollywood’s story in a century of flops / Tim Robey.
Religion
In Brief Review of: THE KORAN AND THE FLESH: The pilgrimage of a gay imam / Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed.
Science & Technology
Joanna Kavenna. Dream on: Theories of the imagination in science and philosophy. Review of: THE SHAPE OF THINGS UNSEEN: A new science of the imagination / Adam Zeman.
Gregory Radick. Darwin for Everyman: How scientific debates about evolution went public. Review of: EVOLUTION FOR THE PEOPLE: Shaping popular ideas from Darwin to the present / Peter J. Bowler (Cambridge University Press).
Ian Sansom. The system is broken: Computer security as a social good. (Essay: thoughts on Security Engineering: A guide to building dependable distributed systems / Ross Anderson (2001))
In Brief Review of: WHY FISH DON'T EXIST: A story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life / Lulu Miller. (Taxonomy & obsession).
In Brief Review of: ANTES QUE NADA / Martín Caparrós (author's memoir of ALS).
History, Politics, Society
In this issue, only in the Featured section.
Featured
Nikhil Venkatesh. Trying too hard: The elusive pursuit of the greatest good for the greatest number. Review of: UTILITARIANISM AS A WAY OF LIFE: Re-envisioning planetary happiness / Bart Schultz (Polity).
Lindsey Hilsum. Where to?: The future of Greenland. (Essay)
Adam Sutcliffe. A light unto the nationalists?: How non-western countries view Israel and the Palestinians. Review of: THE WORLD AFTER GAZA / Pankaj Mishra -- BEING JEWISH AFTER THE DESTRUCTION OF GAZA: A reckoning / Peter Beinart -- HOW ISN’T IT GOING?: Conversations after October 7 / Delphine Horvilleur; translated by Lisa Appignanesi (Europa Compass)-- EVERYDAY JEWS: Why the Jewish people are not who you think they are / Keith Kahn Harris (Icon).
Peter Holland. The playhouse is the thing: Shakespeare’s apprenticeship as actor and dramatist at the Theatre. Review of: THE DREAM FACTORY: London’s first playhouse and the making of William Shakespeare / Daniel Swift (Yale University Press).
Mary Beard from her blog on the TLS current issue landing page. Art in the country.
Literature & Bibliography
Lois Potter. Golden buttons on the bough: An argument for Shakespeare’s exceptional status. Review of: SHAKESPEARE, DRAMATIC POETRY AND VALUE / MacDonald P. Jackson (Routledge).
Margreta De Grazia. Order on chaos: The ‘sustaining’ fictions of Shakespearean characters. Review of: SHAKESPEARE’S TRAGIC ART / Rhodri Lewis.
Boris Dralyuk. Life and death issues: The ‘vivifying shock’ of a Polish poet who captured his times. Review of: Selected Poems / Zbigniew Herbert (Penguin: Note both TLS & Amazon leave out the name of the editor; shoddy work, in addition Amazon leaves out the publisher name; fwiw ISBN 978-0241654613)
Sophy Roberts. Under covers: Literary holes in the Iron Curtain. Review of: THE CIA BOOK CLUB: The best-kept secret of the Cold War / Charlie English (note: US subtitle: The Secret Mission to Win the Cold War with Forbidden Literature).
Katherine J. Chen. No ordinary monk: A fictional reimagining of the legend of Pope Joan. Review of: RAPTURE / Emily Maguire.
Ian Cawood. Another honourable member: Two novels of liberal prime ministers and their lively associates. Review of: PRECIPICE / Robert Harris -- GREEN INK / Stephen May (Swift Press).
Norma Clarke. Cabin fever: A tale of toxic adventurers on eighteenth-century seas. Review of: EDEN’S SHORE / Oisín Fagan.
Miranda France. More imaginary than most: Nostalgia, guilt and Heimat for Spain’s Cameroonian Germans. Review of: LOS ALEMANES / Sergio del Molino.
In Brief Review of: THE FACE IN THE WELL / Rebecca Watts (Poems).
In Brief Review of: DEATH TAKES ME / Cristina Rivera Garza; translated by Sarah Booker and Robin Myers ("A murder mystery relayed in lipstick, nail varnish and ‘castrated letters’")
In Brief Review of: SCATTERED AND FUGITIVE THINGS: How Black collectors created archives and remade history / Laura E. Helton.
Arts
Marina Warner. Mysteries and grace: The beauty and humanity of fourteenth-century Sienese art. Review of the exhibition SIENA: The rise of painting, 1300–50, National Gallery, London, until June 22 & the catalog, Joanna Cannon, editor.
Muriel Zagha. Calf love: Louise Courvoisier’s portrait of rural France. Review of the film HOLY COW.
Anna Aslanyan. Theatricality exposed: A new production of an Ionesco classic. Review of Eugène Ionesco's play RHINOCEROS, Almeida Theatre, London, until April 26.
Bradley A. Gorski. Escape to an alternative country: How artists found community and freedom under the Soviets. Review of: THE OXFORD HANDBOOK OF SOVIET UNDERGROUND CULTURE / Mark Lipovetsky (Oxford University Press).
In Brief Review of: BOX OFFICE POISON: Hollywood’s story in a century of flops / Tim Robey.
Religion
In Brief Review of: THE KORAN AND THE FLESH: The pilgrimage of a gay imam / Ludovic-Mohamed Zahed.
Science & Technology
Joanna Kavenna. Dream on: Theories of the imagination in science and philosophy. Review of: THE SHAPE OF THINGS UNSEEN: A new science of the imagination / Adam Zeman.
Gregory Radick. Darwin for Everyman: How scientific debates about evolution went public. Review of: EVOLUTION FOR THE PEOPLE: Shaping popular ideas from Darwin to the present / Peter J. Bowler (Cambridge University Press).
Ian Sansom. The system is broken: Computer security as a social good. (Essay: thoughts on Security Engineering: A guide to building dependable distributed systems / Ross Anderson (2001))
In Brief Review of: WHY FISH DON'T EXIST: A story of loss, love, and the hidden order of life / Lulu Miller. (Taxonomy & obsession).
In Brief Review of: ANTES QUE NADA / Martín Caparrós (author's memoir of ALS).
History, Politics, Society
In this issue, only in the Featured section.
39featherbear
Tim Mohr, 1969-2025
Clay Risen. NYT, 04/16/2025: Tim Mohr, Berlin D.J. Turned Award-Winning Translator, Dies at 55. "An American who had lived abroad, he sought out books by up-and-coming German writers, while ghostwriting memoirs for rock stars like Paul Stanley."
After graduating from Yale with a degree in Medieval history, "Mr. Mohr arrived in Germany in 1992 with a yearlong grant to teach English. He did not speak a word of German, so the program sent him to Berlin, a melting pot of cultures where English was often the second language.
"He stayed for six years. By day, he worked as a journalist for local English-language magazines, including the Berlin edition of Time Out; at night, he was a D.J. in the city’s ever-expanding club scene.
"He later remarked that his time spent traveling among Berlin’s many underground subcultures gave him a thorough education in a form of street German that set him up to work as a translator."
"One of his first major translation projects, in 2008, was “Feuchtgebiete” (“Wetlands”), a sexually explicit coming-of-age novel by Charlotte Roche packed with raunchy, idiomatic slang that only someone with Mr. Mohr’s background could render in English.
“I read the book for the eventual U.S. publisher when they were considering buying the rights,” he told The Financial Times in 2012. “And I said to the editor, ‘You know, you’ll be hard pressed to find an academic translator who is as familiar with terminology related to anal sex as a former Berlin club D.J. is.’”
Some of his translations: Wetlands / Charlotte Roche -- Broken Glass Park / Alina Bronsky -- Baba Dunja's Last Love / Alina Bronsky -- Guantanamo / Dorothy Dieckmann.
He also wrote Stirb Nicht im Warteraum der Zukunft: Die Ostdeutschen Punks und der Fall der Mauer, English language edition Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. He also collaborated on American punk rocker memoirs: It’s So Easy (and Other Lies) / Duff McKagan (Guns n Roses) & Face the Music: A Life Exposed / Paul Stanley (Kiss).
He has an LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/mohrtim
Clay Risen. NYT, 04/16/2025: Tim Mohr, Berlin D.J. Turned Award-Winning Translator, Dies at 55. "An American who had lived abroad, he sought out books by up-and-coming German writers, while ghostwriting memoirs for rock stars like Paul Stanley."
After graduating from Yale with a degree in Medieval history, "Mr. Mohr arrived in Germany in 1992 with a yearlong grant to teach English. He did not speak a word of German, so the program sent him to Berlin, a melting pot of cultures where English was often the second language.
"He stayed for six years. By day, he worked as a journalist for local English-language magazines, including the Berlin edition of Time Out; at night, he was a D.J. in the city’s ever-expanding club scene.
"He later remarked that his time spent traveling among Berlin’s many underground subcultures gave him a thorough education in a form of street German that set him up to work as a translator."
"One of his first major translation projects, in 2008, was “Feuchtgebiete” (“Wetlands”), a sexually explicit coming-of-age novel by Charlotte Roche packed with raunchy, idiomatic slang that only someone with Mr. Mohr’s background could render in English.
“I read the book for the eventual U.S. publisher when they were considering buying the rights,” he told The Financial Times in 2012. “And I said to the editor, ‘You know, you’ll be hard pressed to find an academic translator who is as familiar with terminology related to anal sex as a former Berlin club D.J. is.’”
Some of his translations: Wetlands / Charlotte Roche -- Broken Glass Park / Alina Bronsky -- Baba Dunja's Last Love / Alina Bronsky -- Guantanamo / Dorothy Dieckmann.
He also wrote Stirb Nicht im Warteraum der Zukunft: Die Ostdeutschen Punks und der Fall der Mauer, English language edition Burning Down the Haus: Punk Rock, Revolution, and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. He also collaborated on American punk rocker memoirs: It’s So Easy (and Other Lies) / Duff McKagan (Guns n Roses) & Face the Music: A Life Exposed / Paul Stanley (Kiss).
He has an LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/mohrtim
40featherbear
Boston Review April 2025
David Austin Walsh. 04/16/2025: What Is This Nation?: Palantir’s military-industrial plan for America. Regarding The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West / Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska ("top executives at Palantir Technologies")
David Austin Walsh. 04/16/2025: What Is This Nation?: Palantir’s military-industrial plan for America. Regarding The Technological Republic: Hard Power, Soft Belief, and the Future of the West / Alexander Karp and Nicholas Zamiska ("top executives at Palantir Technologies")
42featherbear
Francis Davis, 1946-2025
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 04/17/2025: Francis Davis, Sharp-Eared Jazz Critic, Is Dead at 78.
"As a contributing editor at The Atlantic for more than a quarter-century and a columnist at The Village Voice for even longer, Mr. Davis wrote hundreds of articles on music, film, television and popular culture, focusing on jazz — an art form he both celebrated and bemoaned, worried that its future would not live up to its past. (He also wrote for The New York Times and other publications.)
"His specialty was teasing meaning from the sounds he heard, situating them in America’s history, culture and society. That approach, and the fluency of his writing, made him one of the most influential writers on jazz in the 1980s and beyond, drawing a wide readership and praise from other critics. The cultural figures and artifacts he took on — Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, “Seinfeld,” Billie Holiday, the director William Wyler — amount to a group portrait of America in the postwar years, largely in the pages of The Atlantic."
Some of his books include: The History Of The Blues: The Roots, The Music, The People -- Bebop and Nothingness: Jazz and Pop at the End of the Century -- Jazz And Its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader.
Francis Davis's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/davisfrancis-1
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 04/17/2025: Francis Davis, Sharp-Eared Jazz Critic, Is Dead at 78.
"As a contributing editor at The Atlantic for more than a quarter-century and a columnist at The Village Voice for even longer, Mr. Davis wrote hundreds of articles on music, film, television and popular culture, focusing on jazz — an art form he both celebrated and bemoaned, worried that its future would not live up to its past. (He also wrote for The New York Times and other publications.)
"His specialty was teasing meaning from the sounds he heard, situating them in America’s history, culture and society. That approach, and the fluency of his writing, made him one of the most influential writers on jazz in the 1980s and beyond, drawing a wide readership and praise from other critics. The cultural figures and artifacts he took on — Frank Sinatra, Count Basie, “Seinfeld,” Billie Holiday, the director William Wyler — amount to a group portrait of America in the postwar years, largely in the pages of The Atlantic."
Some of his books include: The History Of The Blues: The Roots, The Music, The People -- Bebop and Nothingness: Jazz and Pop at the End of the Century -- Jazz And Its Discontents: A Francis Davis Reader.
Francis Davis's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/davisfrancis-1
43featherbear
April 18 updates:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
NYT 2 for 4/18, but also for 4/14 rev Coe novel >15 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
Atlantic >6 featherbear:
NYT 2 for 4/18, but also for 4/14 rev Coe novel >15 featherbear:
WaPo >18 featherbear:
44featherbear
April 19 updates:
Guardian JK Rowling extracurriculars re gender >9 featherbear:
New Yorker Report on the decline of Outsider magazine; added an Apr 7 Kolbert review of a book on nuclear energy >17 featherbear:
NYT Added an Adam Tooze review on climate from 4/15 >15 featherbear:
WaPo Rev of John Cassidy on capitalism >18 featherbear:
Guardian JK Rowling extracurriculars re gender >9 featherbear:
New Yorker Report on the decline of Outsider magazine; added an Apr 7 Kolbert review of a book on nuclear energy >17 featherbear:
NYT Added an Adam Tooze review on climate from 4/15 >15 featherbear:
WaPo Rev of John Cassidy on capitalism >18 featherbear:
45featherbear
April 20 updates:
The Critic Barbarossa bio >7 featherbear:
Guardian British highway & Biden bio >9 featherbear:
LARB rev Voices of Adriana >4 featherbear:
NYT overlooked Apr 12 rev of Binet novel >15 featherbear:
WaPo regarding US Naval Academy library deaccessions >18 featherbear:
The Critic Barbarossa bio >7 featherbear:
Guardian British highway & Biden bio >9 featherbear:
LARB rev Voices of Adriana >4 featherbear:
NYT overlooked Apr 12 rev of Binet novel >15 featherbear:
WaPo regarding US Naval Academy library deaccessions >18 featherbear:
46featherbear
Pope Francis, 1936-2025
Jason Horowitz & Jim Yardley. NYT, 04/21/2025: Francis, the First Latin American Pope, Dies at 88. "After decades of conservative leadership, Francis tried to reset the course of the Roman Catholic Church, emphasizing inclusion and care for the marginalized over doctrinal purity." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Anthony Faiola. WaPo, 04/21/2025: Pope Francis, whose humility and empathy reshaped the papacy, dies at 88. "He made few changes to Catholic doctrine, but his inclusive style inspired adoration and provoked criticism." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Angela Giuffrida & Harriet Sherwood. Guardian, 04/21/2025: Pope Francis, groundbreaking Jesuit pontiff, dies aged 88. "Death of 266th head of Catholic church triggers period of global mourning and Vatican conclave of cardinals to elect successor."
Pope Francis's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/francispope
Jason Horowitz & Jim Yardley. NYT, 04/21/2025: Francis, the First Latin American Pope, Dies at 88. "After decades of conservative leadership, Francis tried to reset the course of the Roman Catholic Church, emphasizing inclusion and care for the marginalized over doctrinal purity." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Anthony Faiola. WaPo, 04/21/2025: Pope Francis, whose humility and empathy reshaped the papacy, dies at 88. "He made few changes to Catholic doctrine, but his inclusive style inspired adoration and provoked criticism." TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Angela Giuffrida & Harriet Sherwood. Guardian, 04/21/2025: Pope Francis, groundbreaking Jesuit pontiff, dies aged 88. "Death of 266th head of Catholic church triggers period of global mourning and Vatican conclave of cardinals to elect successor."
Pope Francis's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/francispope
47featherbear
Aeon April 2025:
Armand D'Angour. 04/22/2025: The truth about love. "In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates shared a theory of love from the teachings of a ‘non-Athenian woman’. Who was she really?"
Armand D'Angour. 04/22/2025: The truth about love. "In Plato’s Symposium, Socrates shared a theory of love from the teachings of a ‘non-Athenian woman’. Who was she really?"
48featherbear
Herbert Gans, 1927-2025
Robert D. McFadden. NYT, 04/22/2025: Herbert J. Gans, 97, Dies; Upended Myths on Urban and Suburban Life. "A leading sociologist, he explored American society up close — living in a Levittown at one point — to gain insight into issues of race, class, the media and even the Yankees."
Author of, among others: The Urban Villagers: group and class in the life of Italian-Americans (1962) -- The Levittowners (1968) -- The War Against the Poor (1995) -- Imagining America in 2033 (2008)
Herbert Gans's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/gansherbertj
Robert D. McFadden. NYT, 04/22/2025: Herbert J. Gans, 97, Dies; Upended Myths on Urban and Suburban Life. "A leading sociologist, he explored American society up close — living in a Levittown at one point — to gain insight into issues of race, class, the media and even the Yankees."
Author of, among others: The Urban Villagers: group and class in the life of Italian-Americans (1962) -- The Levittowners (1968) -- The War Against the Poor (1995) -- Imagining America in 2033 (2008)
Herbert Gans's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/gansherbertj
49featherbear
Karen Durbin, 1944-2025
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 04/19/2025: Karen Durbin, journalist who led Village Voice in ’90s, dies at 80. "Ms. Durbin’s career included film reviews and essays on feminism that included a powerful 1976 piece in the Village Voice, “On Being a Woman Alone.”"
A shame her articles were never collected in book form.
"Karen Durbin, a writer, editor and feminist commentator who riveted Village Voice readers in 1976 with an essay that celebrated the option of women navigating life alone, and who became editor of the storied weekly as it struggled to recapture its edge in the 1990s, died on April 15 at a health-care facility in Brooklyn. She was 80.
"The death was confirmed by Cynthia Carr, a friend and former colleague, who said Ms. Durbin had been under care for dementia.
"Ms. Durbin had no immediate survivors, Carr said."
Sam Roberts. NYT, 04/23/2025: Karen Durbin, 80, Dies; ‘Fearless’ Feminist Who Edited The Village Voice. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 04/19/2025: Karen Durbin, journalist who led Village Voice in ’90s, dies at 80. "Ms. Durbin’s career included film reviews and essays on feminism that included a powerful 1976 piece in the Village Voice, “On Being a Woman Alone.”"
A shame her articles were never collected in book form.
"Karen Durbin, a writer, editor and feminist commentator who riveted Village Voice readers in 1976 with an essay that celebrated the option of women navigating life alone, and who became editor of the storied weekly as it struggled to recapture its edge in the 1990s, died on April 15 at a health-care facility in Brooklyn. She was 80.
"The death was confirmed by Cynthia Carr, a friend and former colleague, who said Ms. Durbin had been under care for dementia.
"Ms. Durbin had no immediate survivors, Carr said."
Sam Roberts. NYT, 04/23/2025: Karen Durbin, 80, Dies; ‘Fearless’ Feminist Who Edited The Village Voice. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
50featherbear
TLS April 25, 2025|No. 6369
Featured
Mary Beard (from the current TLS landing page). The Peacock Room. (Whistler's Peacock Gallery at the Freer Gallery, Washington DC)
Jenny Uglow. Visions and Leviathans: How William Blake’s art and imagination have inspired generation. Review of: WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE SEA MONSTERS OF LOVE / Philip Hoare -- WILLIAM BLAKE’S VISIONS: Art, hallucinations, synaesthesia / David Worrall -- THE ROSSETTI MANUSCRIPTS / William Blake ( Éditions des Saints Pères).
Costica Bradatan. To know or not to know: Uncomfortable truths about ourselves are the hardest to accept. Review of: IGNORANCE AND BLISS: On wanting not to know / Mark Lilla.
Emily Hauser. The long debate: The removal of the Marbles of the Parthenon – as it happened. Review of: FRIEZE FRAME: How poets, painters, and their friends framed the debate around Elgin and the Marbles of the Parthenon / A. E. Stallings (Paul Dry).
Grace Livingstone. A dictator in pyjamas: Uncovering the dark histories behind General Pinochet’s arrest in London. Review of: 38 LONDRES STREET: On impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia / Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
Literature
Oonagh Devitt Tremblay. Not like the others: Longing and loss in eight unsettling tales. Review of: THE ACCIDENTALS / Guadalupe Nettel; translated by Rosalind Harvey.
Francesca Tiana. Cursed mirror: Stories of alienation and self-sabotage. Review of: REJECTION / Tony Tulathimutte.
Heather Cass White. Into the woods: A hiker goes missing on the Appalachian Trail. Review of: HEARTWOOD / Amity Gaige.
Philip Womack. Coming up for air: A father and husband finds freedom in the roads. Review of: THE REST OF OUR LIVES / Ben Markovits.
Cahall Dallat. Jackdaw and teller of tales: Writing by an Irish master of the short story. Review of: A BENEDICT KIELY READER: “Drink to the Bird” and selected essays / Benedict Kiely (Turnpike).
Richard Price. Small town minds: Rediscovering a ‘classic’ novel of claustrophobic Scottish life. Review of: FROM SCENES LIKE THESE / Gordon M. Williams; introduced by James Robertson.
Declan Ryan. ‘Closets, closets, closets’: The quiet voice of Elizabeth Bishop navigated repression and panic. Review of: ON ELIZABETH BISHOP / Colm Tóibín.
Megan Marz. Underbaked: ‘Lazy’ essays by the author of Empire Falls. Review of: LIFE AND ART: Essays / Richard Russo.
Clifford Thompson. Separate and unequal: A critical view of race relations in America. Review of: THE MESSAGE / Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Jessie Munton. The critic as creator: A self-described ‘recovering academic’ takes on her peers. Review of: AUTHORITY: Essays / Andrea Long Chu (UK subtitle: Essays on being right)
In Brief Review of: MEDIEVAL TWITTER / Alice Spencer-Hall. ("In her book’s four main chapters, Spencer-Hall offers a comparison between medieval literary forms and twenty-first-century digital media.")
In Brief Review of: FIRE EXIT / Morgan Talty.
Arts
Russell Davies. Words never failed him: The other musical Gershwin, lyricist Ira. Review of: IRA GERSHWIN: A life in words / Michael Owen.
Laura Kolb. ‘The Drop Sinister’: The literary life of Belle da Costa Greene crossed the colour line. Review of the exhibition BELLE DA COSTA GREENE: A librarian’s legacy, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, until May 4.
Kathryn Hughes. Whistler vs Ruskin: The libel case about ‘throwing a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ Review of: FALLING ROCKET: James Whistler, John Ruskin, and the battle for modern art / Paul Thomas Murphy.
Rosemary Waugh. Shapeshifting men: Robert Icke’s new play: a modern story with ancient preoccupations. Review of the play MANHUNT, Royal Court, London, until May 3.
In Brief Review of: THOSE PASSIONS: On art and politics / T.J. Clark.
In Brief Review of: A TOAST TO ST MARTIRIÀ / Albert Serra; translated by Matthew Tree (Divided Publishing). ("A film-maker's ode to parties and playfulness")
Architecture
Jonathan Buckley. Serious houses: A craftsman’s guide to churches. Review of: CHURCH GOING: A stonemason’s guide to the churches of the British Isles / Andrew Ziminski.
Gabiel Byng. A sense of wonder: How medieval people responded to their buildings. Review of: ARCHITECTURE AND AFFECT IN THE MIDDLE AGES / Paul Binski.
Religion
John Tolan. Parting of the ways: The ambiguity of Christian attitudes to Judaism. Review of: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS: From antiquity to the present day / Edward Kessler.
In Brief Review of: ANOTHER ZIONISM, ANOTHER JUDAISM: The unrequited love of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis / Göran Rosenberg (Other Press).
Philosophy
Jane O'Grady. Preservation orders: The philosophy of conservation. Review of: WHAT TO SAVE AND WHY: Identity, authenticity, and the ethics of conservation / Erich Hatala Matthes.
Science & Technology
Daniel Susskind. Review of: The new arms race: AI and the West: a call for unity or a path to technological nationalism? Review of: THE TECHNOLOGICAL REPUBLIC: Hard power, soft belief and the future of the West / Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Regina Rini. Everyone hates tourists: A trying quest for peace in Japan. (Essay)
Miriam Dobson. Finding refuge: Displaced persons were more than pawns in a great power game. Review of: LOST SOULS: Soviet displaced persons and the birth of the Cold War / Sheila Fitzpatrick.
Kevin M.F. Platt. Russia’s forgotten corner: Sketches of provincial life in the Putin era. Review of: RUSSIA STARTS HERE: Real lives in the ruins of empire / Howard Amos.
Ian Thomson. Living on the front line: The Baltic states and their mighty Russian neighbour. Review of: BALTIC: The future of Europe / Oliver Moody.
In Brief Review of: INVISIBLE RULERS: The people who turn lies into reality / Renée DiResta.
Hobbies
In Brief Review of: THE MADMAN’S GUIDE TO STAMP COLLECTING / Robert Irwin.
Featured
Mary Beard (from the current TLS landing page). The Peacock Room. (Whistler's Peacock Gallery at the Freer Gallery, Washington DC)
Jenny Uglow. Visions and Leviathans: How William Blake’s art and imagination have inspired generation. Review of: WILLIAM BLAKE AND THE SEA MONSTERS OF LOVE / Philip Hoare -- WILLIAM BLAKE’S VISIONS: Art, hallucinations, synaesthesia / David Worrall -- THE ROSSETTI MANUSCRIPTS / William Blake ( Éditions des Saints Pères).
Costica Bradatan. To know or not to know: Uncomfortable truths about ourselves are the hardest to accept. Review of: IGNORANCE AND BLISS: On wanting not to know / Mark Lilla.
Emily Hauser. The long debate: The removal of the Marbles of the Parthenon – as it happened. Review of: FRIEZE FRAME: How poets, painters, and their friends framed the debate around Elgin and the Marbles of the Parthenon / A. E. Stallings (Paul Dry).
Grace Livingstone. A dictator in pyjamas: Uncovering the dark histories behind General Pinochet’s arrest in London. Review of: 38 LONDRES STREET: On impunity, Pinochet in England and a Nazi in Patagonia / Philippe Sands (Weidenfeld & Nicolson).
Literature
Oonagh Devitt Tremblay. Not like the others: Longing and loss in eight unsettling tales. Review of: THE ACCIDENTALS / Guadalupe Nettel; translated by Rosalind Harvey.
Francesca Tiana. Cursed mirror: Stories of alienation and self-sabotage. Review of: REJECTION / Tony Tulathimutte.
Heather Cass White. Into the woods: A hiker goes missing on the Appalachian Trail. Review of: HEARTWOOD / Amity Gaige.
Philip Womack. Coming up for air: A father and husband finds freedom in the roads. Review of: THE REST OF OUR LIVES / Ben Markovits.
Cahall Dallat. Jackdaw and teller of tales: Writing by an Irish master of the short story. Review of: A BENEDICT KIELY READER: “Drink to the Bird” and selected essays / Benedict Kiely (Turnpike).
Richard Price. Small town minds: Rediscovering a ‘classic’ novel of claustrophobic Scottish life. Review of: FROM SCENES LIKE THESE / Gordon M. Williams; introduced by James Robertson.
Declan Ryan. ‘Closets, closets, closets’: The quiet voice of Elizabeth Bishop navigated repression and panic. Review of: ON ELIZABETH BISHOP / Colm Tóibín.
Megan Marz. Underbaked: ‘Lazy’ essays by the author of Empire Falls. Review of: LIFE AND ART: Essays / Richard Russo.
Clifford Thompson. Separate and unequal: A critical view of race relations in America. Review of: THE MESSAGE / Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Jessie Munton. The critic as creator: A self-described ‘recovering academic’ takes on her peers. Review of: AUTHORITY: Essays / Andrea Long Chu (UK subtitle: Essays on being right)
In Brief Review of: MEDIEVAL TWITTER / Alice Spencer-Hall. ("In her book’s four main chapters, Spencer-Hall offers a comparison between medieval literary forms and twenty-first-century digital media.")
In Brief Review of: FIRE EXIT / Morgan Talty.
Arts
Russell Davies. Words never failed him: The other musical Gershwin, lyricist Ira. Review of: IRA GERSHWIN: A life in words / Michael Owen.
Laura Kolb. ‘The Drop Sinister’: The literary life of Belle da Costa Greene crossed the colour line. Review of the exhibition BELLE DA COSTA GREENE: A librarian’s legacy, Morgan Library and Museum, New York, until May 4.
Kathryn Hughes. Whistler vs Ruskin: The libel case about ‘throwing a pot of paint in the public’s face.’ Review of: FALLING ROCKET: James Whistler, John Ruskin, and the battle for modern art / Paul Thomas Murphy.
Rosemary Waugh. Shapeshifting men: Robert Icke’s new play: a modern story with ancient preoccupations. Review of the play MANHUNT, Royal Court, London, until May 3.
In Brief Review of: THOSE PASSIONS: On art and politics / T.J. Clark.
In Brief Review of: A TOAST TO ST MARTIRIÀ / Albert Serra; translated by Matthew Tree (Divided Publishing). ("A film-maker's ode to parties and playfulness")
Architecture
Jonathan Buckley. Serious houses: A craftsman’s guide to churches. Review of: CHURCH GOING: A stonemason’s guide to the churches of the British Isles / Andrew Ziminski.
Gabiel Byng. A sense of wonder: How medieval people responded to their buildings. Review of: ARCHITECTURE AND AFFECT IN THE MIDDLE AGES / Paul Binski.
Religion
John Tolan. Parting of the ways: The ambiguity of Christian attitudes to Judaism. Review of: A DOCUMENTARY HISTORY OF JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS: From antiquity to the present day / Edward Kessler.
In Brief Review of: ANOTHER ZIONISM, ANOTHER JUDAISM: The unrequited love of Rabbi Marcus Ehrenpreis / Göran Rosenberg (Other Press).
Philosophy
Jane O'Grady. Preservation orders: The philosophy of conservation. Review of: WHAT TO SAVE AND WHY: Identity, authenticity, and the ethics of conservation / Erich Hatala Matthes.
Science & Technology
Daniel Susskind. Review of: The new arms race: AI and the West: a call for unity or a path to technological nationalism? Review of: THE TECHNOLOGICAL REPUBLIC: Hard power, soft belief and the future of the West / Alexander C. Karp and Nicholas W. Zamiska.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Regina Rini. Everyone hates tourists: A trying quest for peace in Japan. (Essay)
Miriam Dobson. Finding refuge: Displaced persons were more than pawns in a great power game. Review of: LOST SOULS: Soviet displaced persons and the birth of the Cold War / Sheila Fitzpatrick.
Kevin M.F. Platt. Russia’s forgotten corner: Sketches of provincial life in the Putin era. Review of: RUSSIA STARTS HERE: Real lives in the ruins of empire / Howard Amos.
Ian Thomson. Living on the front line: The Baltic states and their mighty Russian neighbour. Review of: BALTIC: The future of Europe / Oliver Moody.
In Brief Review of: INVISIBLE RULERS: The people who turn lies into reality / Renée DiResta.
Hobbies
In Brief Review of: THE MADMAN’S GUIDE TO STAMP COLLECTING / Robert Irwin.
51featherbear
April 26 updates:
LARB 2 revs of Grandin's America, América plus a history of sleep >4 featherbear:
New Yorker AI & humanities, America, América, reproduction >17 featherbear:
Public Books Iowa City, Mexican Americans >24 featherbear:
WaPo Saturday round-up: elephants, Native American politicos, Johnson & Johnson, Tina Knowles, 2 French novels, Jews & the Civil War, pyramid schemes >18 featherbear:
Yale Review Trump's attacks on higher education and the work of a little magazine >34 featherbear:
LARB 2 revs of Grandin's America, América plus a history of sleep >4 featherbear:
New Yorker AI & humanities, America, América, reproduction >17 featherbear:
Public Books Iowa City, Mexican Americans >24 featherbear:
WaPo Saturday round-up: elephants, Native American politicos, Johnson & Johnson, Tina Knowles, 2 French novels, Jews & the Civil War, pyramid schemes >18 featherbear:
Yale Review Trump's attacks on higher education and the work of a little magazine >34 featherbear:
52featherbear
Leonard Zeskind, 1949-2025
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 04/24/2025: Leonard Zeskind, Who Foresaw the Rise of White Nationalism, Dies at 75. "With “Blood and Politics,” he predicted that anti-immigrant ideologies would become part of mainstream American politics, and warned about downplaying the threat."
"Long before Donald J. Trump’s nativist rhetoric in 2023 accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood” of the United States, Mr. Zeskind, a single-minded researcher, spent decades studying white nationalism, documenting how its leading voices had shifted their vitriol from Black Americans to nonwhite immigrants.
"His 2009 book, “Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream,” resulted from years of following contemporary Klansmen, neo-Nazis, militia members and other right-wing groups. His investigations earned him a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1998.
"Recently, “Blood and Politics” was one of 381 books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy library in a purge of titles about racism and diversity ordered by the Trump administration.
"Despite the subtitle of Mr. Zeskind’s book, asserting that white nationalists had moved “from the margins to the mainstream,” many reviewers in 2009 were skeptical, treating his work as a backward look at a fringe movement led by racist crackpots whose day was over. The United States had just elected its first Black president, and extremist movements such as Christian Identity, which preached that white Christians were entitled to dominate government and society, seemed antiquated."
Zeskind's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/zeskindleonard
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 04/24/2025: Leonard Zeskind, Who Foresaw the Rise of White Nationalism, Dies at 75. "With “Blood and Politics,” he predicted that anti-immigrant ideologies would become part of mainstream American politics, and warned about downplaying the threat."
"Long before Donald J. Trump’s nativist rhetoric in 2023 accusing immigrants of “poisoning the blood” of the United States, Mr. Zeskind, a single-minded researcher, spent decades studying white nationalism, documenting how its leading voices had shifted their vitriol from Black Americans to nonwhite immigrants.
"His 2009 book, “Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement From the Margins to the Mainstream,” resulted from years of following contemporary Klansmen, neo-Nazis, militia members and other right-wing groups. His investigations earned him a MacArthur “genius grant” in 1998.
"Recently, “Blood and Politics” was one of 381 books removed from the U.S. Naval Academy library in a purge of titles about racism and diversity ordered by the Trump administration.
"Despite the subtitle of Mr. Zeskind’s book, asserting that white nationalists had moved “from the margins to the mainstream,” many reviewers in 2009 were skeptical, treating his work as a backward look at a fringe movement led by racist crackpots whose day was over. The United States had just elected its first Black president, and extremist movements such as Christian Identity, which preached that white Christians were entitled to dominate government and society, seemed antiquated."
Zeskind's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/zeskindleonard
53featherbear
This message has been deleted by its author.
55featherbear
Alexandra Fröhlich (–2025)
Kate Connolly. Guardian, 04/27/2025: Bestselling German novelist found killed on Hamburg houseboat.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/froumlhlichalexandra
Kate Connolly. Guardian, 04/27/2025: Bestselling German novelist found killed on Hamburg houseboat.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/froumlhlichalexandra
56featherbear
April 28 updates:
LARB premodern Chinese lit & the 20th anniversary of Never Let Me Go >4 featherbear:
LitHub On The Martian Chronicles >27 featherbear:
New Yorker Jill Lepore reads Penguin Little Black Classics + Jews in Texas >17 featherbear:
WaPo an overlooked article on Anne Hathaway from Apr 23; from Apr 27 on Frank Wisner, from Apr 28, review of a Princess Diana book >18 featherbear:
LARB premodern Chinese lit & the 20th anniversary of Never Let Me Go >4 featherbear:
LitHub On The Martian Chronicles >27 featherbear:
New Yorker Jill Lepore reads Penguin Little Black Classics + Jews in Texas >17 featherbear:
WaPo an overlooked article on Anne Hathaway from Apr 23; from Apr 27 on Frank Wisner, from Apr 28, review of a Princess Diana book >18 featherbear:
57featherbear
Peter Lovesey, 1936-2025
Penelope Green. 04/28/2025: Peter Lovesey, a Master of British Whodunits, Is Dead at 88. "He wrote a series of witty police procedurals set in Victorian England and then turned to the present, introducing a cantankerous and technology-averse detective."
"Over his half-century career, he won more mystery awards than there is space to list and proved to be a master practitioner of brainy whodunits in the classic English tradition, presiding over the genre’s second golden age, along with peers like P.D. James and Ruth Rendell."
He started out writing historical mysteries, but later "turned to the present with “The Last Detective” (1991), in which a short-tempered, overweight and technology-averse superintendent named Peter Diamond investigates the murder of a former soap star in the city of Bath. There are historical touches — a side plot involves letters from Jane Austen — but mostly it’s about Diamond’s struggle with modernity, and his own brutish failings.
“I knew little about police procedure or forensic science,” Mr. Lovesey said last year. “To hide my ignorance, I made Peter Diamond the last of a vanishing generation of Scotland Yard men who beat up suspects, disregarded the rules and despised the men in white coats. He came to genteel Bath, created mayhem and solved a difficult crime in his rough-and-ready way.”
"Except for the grumpy part, Mr. Lovesey’s son said, Superintendent Diamond was a stand-in for his creator, who was bitterly opposed to technology. Mr. Lovesey wrote in longhand for decades before briefly and reluctantly switching to an electric “golf ball” Olivetti typewriter and then, finally, a word processor, which threw him entirely. During the pandemic, his son said, he mistakenly downloaded Zoom 25 times.
"Mr. Lovesey was well known not just for his writing but for weaving excerpts from his fan mail into his speeches. He was particularly fond of this correspondence from a female reader:
“I have not written to thank you because I assumed you died many years ago,” she wrote. “My husband says he thinks you may still be alive. We had quite an argument about it last night. I suppose it does not really matter, but we would be most grateful to have the question cleared up.”
Mr Lovesey's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/loveseypeter
Somewhat amazed I only own one of his 104 books; perhaps I haven't cataloged them all on LT
Penelope Green. 04/28/2025: Peter Lovesey, a Master of British Whodunits, Is Dead at 88. "He wrote a series of witty police procedurals set in Victorian England and then turned to the present, introducing a cantankerous and technology-averse detective."
"Over his half-century career, he won more mystery awards than there is space to list and proved to be a master practitioner of brainy whodunits in the classic English tradition, presiding over the genre’s second golden age, along with peers like P.D. James and Ruth Rendell."
He started out writing historical mysteries, but later "turned to the present with “The Last Detective” (1991), in which a short-tempered, overweight and technology-averse superintendent named Peter Diamond investigates the murder of a former soap star in the city of Bath. There are historical touches — a side plot involves letters from Jane Austen — but mostly it’s about Diamond’s struggle with modernity, and his own brutish failings.
“I knew little about police procedure or forensic science,” Mr. Lovesey said last year. “To hide my ignorance, I made Peter Diamond the last of a vanishing generation of Scotland Yard men who beat up suspects, disregarded the rules and despised the men in white coats. He came to genteel Bath, created mayhem and solved a difficult crime in his rough-and-ready way.”
"Except for the grumpy part, Mr. Lovesey’s son said, Superintendent Diamond was a stand-in for his creator, who was bitterly opposed to technology. Mr. Lovesey wrote in longhand for decades before briefly and reluctantly switching to an electric “golf ball” Olivetti typewriter and then, finally, a word processor, which threw him entirely. During the pandemic, his son said, he mistakenly downloaded Zoom 25 times.
"Mr. Lovesey was well known not just for his writing but for weaving excerpts from his fan mail into his speeches. He was particularly fond of this correspondence from a female reader:
“I have not written to thank you because I assumed you died many years ago,” she wrote. “My husband says he thinks you may still be alive. We had quite an argument about it last night. I suppose it does not really matter, but we would be most grateful to have the question cleared up.”
Mr Lovesey's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/loveseypeter
Somewhat amazed I only own one of his 104 books; perhaps I haven't cataloged them all on LT
58featherbear
April 29 updates:
The Atlantic Church & sex, Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion >6 featherbear:
Guardian Pullman announces conclusion of the Book of Dust trilogy >9 featherbear:
LARB Reading programs in prison, Stefan Zweig's relevance >4 featherbear:
LitHub On Dalrymple's Golden Road >27 featherbear:
New Yorker Great Gatsby in high school >17 featherbear:
Public Books a new novel about Berlin >24 featherbear:
The Atlantic Church & sex, Walter Lippmann's Public Opinion >6 featherbear:
Guardian Pullman announces conclusion of the Book of Dust trilogy >9 featherbear:
LARB Reading programs in prison, Stefan Zweig's relevance >4 featherbear:
LitHub On Dalrymple's Golden Road >27 featherbear:
New Yorker Great Gatsby in high school >17 featherbear:
Public Books a new novel about Berlin >24 featherbear:
59featherbear
Arjun Panickssery. lesswrong.com, 04/03/2025: Why Have Sentence Lengths Decreased?
60featherbear
Jane Gardam, 1928-2025
Helen T. Verongos. NYT, 04/29/2025: Jane Gardam, Witty Novelist of a Waning British Empire, Dies at 96. "“The Queen of the Tambourine,” “Old Filth” and other fiction vividly captured both working-class and aristocratic Britain in the last years of the colonial era."
"Distinct from one another as planets, Ms. Gardam’s many novels are as thick with madness and self-sacrifice as Shakespeare and as fraught with longstanding misapprehensions as Molière. Her books are leavened by slapstick moments, farcical encounters and slippery characters who sometimes pop up where you least expect them — in other, unrelated books.
"Ms. Gardam’s work captured both working-class and aristocratic Britain of a certain era, mostly between the world wars.
"She was “sometimes too subtle,” said Penelope Hoare, one of Ms. Gardam’s editors.
"“She hates explaining,” Ms. Hoare told The Guardian in 2005. “She wants to keep the interpretation out of the books. She doesn’t want to tell the readers what it means, as if that would take the bloom off.”
"Aside from fiction writing, Ms. Gardam worked as a journalist and a librarian but preferred “the comfort of the alternative fictional worlds I inhabit,” she told Lucasta Miller of The Guardian."
Sadie Stein. NYT, 04/29/2025: The Unsentimental, Acerbic and Deeply Compassionate Fiction of Jane Gardam. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Tessa Hadley. Guardian, 05/02/2025: ‘A natural storyteller’: Jane Gardam remembered by Tessa Hadley.
Harrison Smith. WaPo, 05/01/2025: Jane Gardam, British novelist with a mordant wit, dies at 96.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/gardamjane
Helen T. Verongos. NYT, 04/29/2025: Jane Gardam, Witty Novelist of a Waning British Empire, Dies at 96. "“The Queen of the Tambourine,” “Old Filth” and other fiction vividly captured both working-class and aristocratic Britain in the last years of the colonial era."
"Distinct from one another as planets, Ms. Gardam’s many novels are as thick with madness and self-sacrifice as Shakespeare and as fraught with longstanding misapprehensions as Molière. Her books are leavened by slapstick moments, farcical encounters and slippery characters who sometimes pop up where you least expect them — in other, unrelated books.
"Ms. Gardam’s work captured both working-class and aristocratic Britain of a certain era, mostly between the world wars.
"She was “sometimes too subtle,” said Penelope Hoare, one of Ms. Gardam’s editors.
"“She hates explaining,” Ms. Hoare told The Guardian in 2005. “She wants to keep the interpretation out of the books. She doesn’t want to tell the readers what it means, as if that would take the bloom off.”
"Aside from fiction writing, Ms. Gardam worked as a journalist and a librarian but preferred “the comfort of the alternative fictional worlds I inhabit,” she told Lucasta Miller of The Guardian."
Sadie Stein. NYT, 04/29/2025: The Unsentimental, Acerbic and Deeply Compassionate Fiction of Jane Gardam. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
Tessa Hadley. Guardian, 05/02/2025: ‘A natural storyteller’: Jane Gardam remembered by Tessa Hadley.
Harrison Smith. WaPo, 05/01/2025: Jane Gardam, British novelist with a mordant wit, dies at 96.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/gardamjane
61featherbear
Gerry Canavan. Dissent, winter 2025: Tolkien Against the Grain. "The Lord of the Rings is a book obsessed with ruins, bloodlines, and the divine right of aristocrats. Why are so many on the left able to love it?"
62featherbear
April 30 updates:
Atlantic reading to the end >6 featherbear:
The Critic Fable of the Bees >7 featherbear:
New Yorker 4/28 Chernow's Mark Twain bio >17 featherbear:
NYT Apr 29 Revolutionary War v 2, Chinese immigrants, Native American boarding schools Apr 30 novel about director GW Pabst, nonfic on certainty in math, Millennial girls >15 featherbear:
WaPo Apr 30 on director Pedro Almodovar, death of a dog, romance book covers >18 featherbear:
Atlantic reading to the end >6 featherbear:
The Critic Fable of the Bees >7 featherbear:
New Yorker 4/28 Chernow's Mark Twain bio >17 featherbear:
NYT Apr 29 Revolutionary War v 2, Chinese immigrants, Native American boarding schools Apr 30 novel about director GW Pabst, nonfic on certainty in math, Millennial girls >15 featherbear:
WaPo Apr 30 on director Pedro Almodovar, death of a dog, romance book covers >18 featherbear:
63featherbear
Index May 2025
404 media >120 featherbear:
Atlantic >77 featherbear:
Boston Review >112 featherbear:
Commonweal >140 featherbear:
crimereads >129 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) >71 featherbear:
fivebooks.com >102 featherbear:
Guardian >74 featherbear:
JSTOR Daily >117 featherbear:
LARB >69 featherbear:
Liberties >98 featherbear:
Literary Review (UK monthly) >68 featherbear:
LitHub >78 featherbear:
Metropolitan Review >116 featherbear:
The Nation >92 featherbear:
New Yorker >67 featherbear:
NYRB Online May 15 >64 featherbear: May 29 >82 featherbear:
NYT >70 featherbear:
Poetry Foundation >169 featherbear:
The Point >87 featherbear:
Public Books >81 featherbear:
Quillette >97 featherbear:
Salmagundi >127 featherbear:
Society for U.S. Intellectual History >91 featherbear:
TLS May 2 >65 featherbear: May 9 >79 featherbear: May 16 >94 featherbear: May 23 >106 featherbear: May 30: >121 featherbear:
WaPo >66 featherbear:
Washington Monthly >93 featherbear:
WSJ >128 featherbear:
Yale Review >96 featherbear:
404 media >120 featherbear:
Atlantic >77 featherbear:
Boston Review >112 featherbear:
Commonweal >140 featherbear:
crimereads >129 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) >71 featherbear:
fivebooks.com >102 featherbear:
Guardian >74 featherbear:
JSTOR Daily >117 featherbear:
LARB >69 featherbear:
Liberties >98 featherbear:
Literary Review (UK monthly) >68 featherbear:
LitHub >78 featherbear:
Metropolitan Review >116 featherbear:
The Nation >92 featherbear:
New Yorker >67 featherbear:
NYRB Online May 15 >64 featherbear: May 29 >82 featherbear:
NYT >70 featherbear:
Poetry Foundation >169 featherbear:
The Point >87 featherbear:
Public Books >81 featherbear:
Quillette >97 featherbear:
Salmagundi >127 featherbear:
Society for U.S. Intellectual History >91 featherbear:
TLS May 2 >65 featherbear: May 9 >79 featherbear: May 16 >94 featherbear: May 23 >106 featherbear: May 30: >121 featherbear:
WaPo >66 featherbear:
Washington Monthly >93 featherbear:
WSJ >128 featherbear:
Yale Review >96 featherbear:
64featherbear
NYRB Online May 15 2025
Literature & Bibliography
Lisa Halliday. A More Perfect Truth. Review of: This Strange Eventful History / Claire Messud.
Madeleine Thien. Killing Memories. Review of: Soft Burial / Fang Fang, translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry -- Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary: Anatomy of a Transpacific Cyber Campaign / Michael Berry (Palgrave Macmillan).
Nathaniel Rich. Writing Like a Mountain. Review of: Great Fear on the Mountain / Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, translated from the French by Bill Johnston (Archipelago).
Heather O'Donnell. Ambition, Discipline, Nerve. Review of Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy / an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City, October 25, 2024–May 4, 2025 & the following books: The Personal Librarian / Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray -- Belle Greene / Alexandra Lapierre, translated from the French by Tina Kover -- Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian Through Her Letters / Deborah Parker.
Arts & Crafts & Architecture
Jed Perl. A Century of Surrealism. Review of Surrealism, an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, September 4, 2024–January 13, 2025, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 8, 2025–February 6, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Didier Ottinger, Marie Sarré, and Katia Sowels -- Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes, an exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, November 23, 2024–April 21, 2025; The Box, Plymouth, England, May 24–September 7, 2025; and the Museum Arnhem, the Netherlands, October 3, 2025–February 1, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Eleanor Clayton -- Manifestoes of Surrealism / André Breton, translated from the French by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane -- Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton / Revised and Updated Edition, by Mark Polizzotti -- Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School / Martica Sawin -- Surrealism and Painting / André Breton, translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor, with an introduction by Mark Polizzotti -- Magic Art / André Breton, edited by Robert Shehu-Ansell and Marlin Cox, and translated from the French by Michael Richardson, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, and Dawn Ades -- Why Surrealism Matters / Mark Polizzotti -- Les Portes du rêve, 1924–2024: Surrealism Through Its Journals / edited by Franca Franchi -- Surrealism and Anti-fascism / edited by Karin Althaus, Adrian Djukić, Ara H. Merjian, Matthias Mühling, and Stephanie Weber -- Surrealism Beyond Borders / edited by Stephanie D’Alessandro and Matthew Gale (Metropolitan Museum of Art) -- The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde / Alyce Mahon -- L’Atelier de André Breton: Mur Mondes / edited by Aurélie Verdier -- Symbolism, Dada, Surrealisms / Mary Ann Caws. Whew!
Susan Tallman. String Theory. Review of: Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, April 20–September 13, 2025; catalog of the exhibition edited by Lynne Cooke -- Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; bulletin on the exhibition by Iria Candela and Joanne Pillsbury.
Ingrid D. Rowland. Vitruvius & the Warlords. Review of: All the King’s Horses: Vitruvius in an Age of Princes / Indra Kagis McEwen (MIT Press).
Julian Bell. Internalizing the Crises. Review of: Art in a State of Siege / Joseph Leo Koerner.
Geoffrey O'Brien. Eddying Toward Doom. Review of Moby-Dick, an opera with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Gene Scheer, directed by Leonard Foglia, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, March 3–29, 2025.
David Salle. ‘Why Not All These Things at Once?’ Review of: Arlene Shechet: Girl Group, an exhibition at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, May 4–November 10, 2024; catalog of the exhibition by Eric Booker, Nora Lawrence, Kate Nesin, Anne Reeve, Arlene Shechet, John P. Stern, and Sheena Wagstaff (Storm King Art Center/Gregory R. Miller).
Jarrett Earnest. Art to Sit On. Review of: Scott Burton: Shape Shift / an exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, September 6, 2024–February 2, 2025, and Wrightwood 659, Chicago, October 3, 2025–January 31, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Jess Wilcox and Heather Alexis Smith -- Álvaro Urbano: Tableau Vivant, an exhibition at SculptureCenter, Long Island City, September 19, 2024–March 24, 2025 -- Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art and Performance, 1965–1975 / edited by David J. Getsy -- Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art / David J. Getsy.
Sam Needleman. ‘On the Brink of Erasure.’ Review of: Tacita Dean: Blind Folly, an exhibition at the Menil Collection, Houston, October 11, 2024–April 19, 2025 -- Blind Folly, or How Tacita Dean Draws / Michelle White -- Tacita Dean / edited by George Baker and Annie Rana (MIT Press) -- Base Matter and Uncommon Solvent: Drawings, Prints, Collages and Objects, 1986–2024 / Tacita Dean (MACK).
Coco Fusco. The Portraitist. Review of: Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., October 18, 2024–July 6, 2025; catalog of the exhibition by Josh T. Franco, Charlotte Ickes, Julie Ault, Joshua Chambers-Letson, and Teresita Fernández (Radius).
Martin Filler. The Frick Reinvigorated. (Article: "In an ambitious and long-overdue renovation, the architect Annabelle Selldorf attempted to harmonize with the Frick’s Classical aesthetic while asserting her Modernist credentials.")
Science & Tech
Jerome Groopman. Review of: Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health / Adam Ratner -- So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs—and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease / Thomas Levenson.
History & Social Science
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. Justice for Chagos? Review of: The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice, and Courage / Philippe Sands -- Diego Garcia / Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams.
Noah Feldman. The Last Bulwark. (Article: "The fate of our democracy today depends on the judiciary’s commitments to liberty, constitutionalism, and legality.")
Outside Looking In; April postings overlooked
Joshua Leifer. 04/23/2025: Reoccupying Gaza. "A consensus has by now emerged among Israel’s leaders that the country’s army will take direct, long-term control of the Strip—and attempt to expel its inhabitants."
Sean Wilentz. 04/25/2025: Vance’s Junk History. "J. D. Vance has cited Andrew Jackson to justify the idea that a president can disobey the federal judiciary’s rulings. The historical record says no such thing."
Darryl Pinckney. 04/27/2025: Mornings with Murray. "New York City always got the towering journalist Murray Kempton at full sail."
Literature & Bibliography
Lisa Halliday. A More Perfect Truth. Review of: This Strange Eventful History / Claire Messud.
Madeleine Thien. Killing Memories. Review of: Soft Burial / Fang Fang, translated from the Chinese by Michael Berry -- Translation, Disinformation, and Wuhan Diary: Anatomy of a Transpacific Cyber Campaign / Michael Berry (Palgrave Macmillan).
Nathaniel Rich. Writing Like a Mountain. Review of: Great Fear on the Mountain / Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, translated from the French by Bill Johnston (Archipelago).
Heather O'Donnell. Ambition, Discipline, Nerve. Review of Belle da Costa Greene: A Librarian’s Legacy / an exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum, New York City, October 25, 2024–May 4, 2025 & the following books: The Personal Librarian / Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray -- Belle Greene / Alexandra Lapierre, translated from the French by Tina Kover -- Becoming Belle da Costa Greene: A Visionary Librarian Through Her Letters / Deborah Parker.
Arts & Crafts & Architecture
Jed Perl. A Century of Surrealism. Review of Surrealism, an exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Paris, September 4, 2024–January 13, 2025, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, November 8, 2025–February 6, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Didier Ottinger, Marie Sarré, and Katia Sowels -- Forbidden Territories: 100 Years of Surreal Landscapes, an exhibition at the Hepworth Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, November 23, 2024–April 21, 2025; The Box, Plymouth, England, May 24–September 7, 2025; and the Museum Arnhem, the Netherlands, October 3, 2025–February 1, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Eleanor Clayton -- Manifestoes of Surrealism / André Breton, translated from the French by Richard Seaver and Helen R. Lane -- Revolution of the Mind: The Life of André Breton / Revised and Updated Edition, by Mark Polizzotti -- Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School / Martica Sawin -- Surrealism and Painting / André Breton, translated from the French by Simon Watson Taylor, with an introduction by Mark Polizzotti -- Magic Art / André Breton, edited by Robert Shehu-Ansell and Marlin Cox, and translated from the French by Michael Richardson, Krzysztof Fijalkowski, and Dawn Ades -- Why Surrealism Matters / Mark Polizzotti -- Les Portes du rêve, 1924–2024: Surrealism Through Its Journals / edited by Franca Franchi -- Surrealism and Anti-fascism / edited by Karin Althaus, Adrian Djukić, Ara H. Merjian, Matthias Mühling, and Stephanie Weber -- Surrealism Beyond Borders / edited by Stephanie D’Alessandro and Matthew Gale (Metropolitan Museum of Art) -- The Marquis de Sade and the Avant-Garde / Alyce Mahon -- L’Atelier de André Breton: Mur Mondes / edited by Aurélie Verdier -- Symbolism, Dada, Surrealisms / Mary Ann Caws. Whew!
Susan Tallman. String Theory. Review of: Woven Histories: Textiles and Modern Abstraction, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, April 20–September 13, 2025; catalog of the exhibition edited by Lynne Cooke -- Weaving Abstraction in Ancient and Modern Art, an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; bulletin on the exhibition by Iria Candela and Joanne Pillsbury.
Ingrid D. Rowland. Vitruvius & the Warlords. Review of: All the King’s Horses: Vitruvius in an Age of Princes / Indra Kagis McEwen (MIT Press).
Julian Bell. Internalizing the Crises. Review of: Art in a State of Siege / Joseph Leo Koerner.
Geoffrey O'Brien. Eddying Toward Doom. Review of Moby-Dick, an opera with music by Jake Heggie and a libretto by Gene Scheer, directed by Leonard Foglia, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, March 3–29, 2025.
David Salle. ‘Why Not All These Things at Once?’ Review of: Arlene Shechet: Girl Group, an exhibition at Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York, May 4–November 10, 2024; catalog of the exhibition by Eric Booker, Nora Lawrence, Kate Nesin, Anne Reeve, Arlene Shechet, John P. Stern, and Sheena Wagstaff (Storm King Art Center/Gregory R. Miller).
Jarrett Earnest. Art to Sit On. Review of: Scott Burton: Shape Shift / an exhibition at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis, September 6, 2024–February 2, 2025, and Wrightwood 659, Chicago, October 3, 2025–January 31, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Jess Wilcox and Heather Alexis Smith -- Álvaro Urbano: Tableau Vivant, an exhibition at SculptureCenter, Long Island City, September 19, 2024–March 24, 2025 -- Scott Burton: Collected Writings on Art and Performance, 1965–1975 / edited by David J. Getsy -- Queer Behavior: Scott Burton and Performance Art / David J. Getsy.
Sam Needleman. ‘On the Brink of Erasure.’ Review of: Tacita Dean: Blind Folly, an exhibition at the Menil Collection, Houston, October 11, 2024–April 19, 2025 -- Blind Folly, or How Tacita Dean Draws / Michelle White -- Tacita Dean / edited by George Baker and Annie Rana (MIT Press) -- Base Matter and Uncommon Solvent: Drawings, Prints, Collages and Objects, 1986–2024 / Tacita Dean (MACK).
Coco Fusco. The Portraitist. Review of: Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Always to Return, an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art, Washington, D.C., October 18, 2024–July 6, 2025; catalog of the exhibition by Josh T. Franco, Charlotte Ickes, Julie Ault, Joshua Chambers-Letson, and Teresita Fernández (Radius).
Martin Filler. The Frick Reinvigorated. (Article: "In an ambitious and long-overdue renovation, the architect Annabelle Selldorf attempted to harmonize with the Frick’s Classical aesthetic while asserting her Modernist credentials.")
Science & Tech
Jerome Groopman. Review of: Booster Shots: The Urgent Lessons of Measles and the Uncertain Future of Children’s Health / Adam Ratner -- So Very Small: How Humans Discovered the Microcosmos, Defeated Germs—and May Still Lose the War Against Infectious Disease / Thomas Levenson.
History & Social Science
Atossa Araxia Abrahamian. Justice for Chagos? Review of: The Last Colony: A Tale of Exile, Justice, and Courage / Philippe Sands -- Diego Garcia / Natasha Soobramanien and Luke Williams.
Noah Feldman. The Last Bulwark. (Article: "The fate of our democracy today depends on the judiciary’s commitments to liberty, constitutionalism, and legality.")
Outside Looking In; April postings overlooked
Joshua Leifer. 04/23/2025: Reoccupying Gaza. "A consensus has by now emerged among Israel’s leaders that the country’s army will take direct, long-term control of the Strip—and attempt to expel its inhabitants."
Sean Wilentz. 04/25/2025: Vance’s Junk History. "J. D. Vance has cited Andrew Jackson to justify the idea that a president can disobey the federal judiciary’s rulings. The historical record says no such thing."
Darryl Pinckney. 04/27/2025: Mornings with Murray. "New York City always got the towering journalist Murray Kempton at full sail."
65featherbear
TLS May 2, 2025|No. 6370
Featured
Mary Beard (from the current issue landing page). 04/29/2025: When did the Romans get up in the morning?
Frances Wilson. An unhealthy addiction: The public’s ‘co-dependent’ relationship with Diana. Review of: DIANAWORLD: An obsession / Edward White.
Charles Foster. Looking for something: The modern hunger for religious experience. Review of: LIVING IN WONDER: Finding mystery and meaning in a secular age / Rod Dreher -- THE SPIRITUALITY GAP: Searching for meaning in a secular age / Abi Millar.
Jane Humphries. The wages of gender: Why workplace inequalities persist. Review of: PATRIARCHY INC: What we get wrong about gender equality and why men still win at work / Cordelia Fine.
Norma Clarke. A voice for our times: Oliver Goldsmith, versatile stylist and Irish insider-outsider in Georgian London. Review of: THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD / Oliver Goldsmith; edited by James Watt (Cambridge University Press) -- THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD / Oliver Goldsmith; edited by Aileen Douglas and Ian Campbell Ross (Cambridge University Press).
Literature
Min Wild. The knell of parting day: The harsh realities of rural life revealed in churchyard verse. Review of: CHURCHYARD POETICS: Landscape, labour, and the legacy of genre / James Metcalf (Oxford University Press).
Boris Dralyuk. Empire’s fall: The shifting boundaries of Russian literature. Review of: THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE / Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich and Emma Widdis, editors (Cambridge University Press).
Bryan Karetnyk. Before and after the thaw: Poetry about the very idea of Russia and its past, present and future. Review of: HOLY WINTER 20/21 / Maria Stepanova; translated by Sasha Dugdale -- THE FREEST SPEECH IN RUSSIA: Poetry unbound, 1989–2022 / Stephanie Sandler (Princeton University Press).
Christopher Shrimpton. Wait, escape, wait again: A mother and her children flee an abusive relationship. Review of: NESTING / Roisín O’Donnell.
Lily Isaacs. We are trying to connect: Consolation, yearning and acceptance at a tourist call centre. Review of: CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES / Katharina Vockmer.
Eri Hotta. A life in orange: Absent fathers and nuclear fears. Review of: WILDCAT DOME / Yuko Tsushima; translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.
Nina Allan. Speaking atonally: Disability, difference and the search for true inclusivity. Review of: HUNCHBACK / Saou Ichikawa; translated by Polly Barton.
In Brief Review of: ONE WOMAN SHOW / Christine Coulson ("Christine Coulson earned her expertise in museums through a twenty-five-year career as a writer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and One Woman Show, her second novel, capitalizes on that experience through its format: the novel is told via a series of exhibition wall labels.")
Arts
Francesca Happé. All the mask-wearers: A film made by neurodivergent artists. Review of the film THE STIMMING POOL.
Ann Cooper Albright. Dance moves: Women’s choreography as a force for change. Review of: WILD GRACE: The untamed women of modern dance / Sara Veale.
Natasha Lehrer. A Freudian hour: ‘Compelling, suggestive, haunting’: a new play by Deborah Levy. Review of 50 MINUTES, Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, until May 7.
Anna Parker. Refugee avant-garde: How émigré artists brought modernist ideas to Britain. Review of: THE ALIENATION EFFECT: How Central European émigrés transformed the British twentieth century / Owen Hatherley.
Anson Rabinbach. A very Viennese whitewash: Modern art’s promise to redeem Austrian culture – without the Jews. Review of: VANISHING VIENNA: Modernism, philosemitism, and Jews in a postwar city / Frances Tanzer.
Irina Dumitrescu. Making a name for herself: In search of Marie de France. (Essay)
Medicine
Fay Bound Alberti. Rogue male: Medical power unchecked. Review of: THE SLEEP ROOM: A very British medical scandal / Jon Stock.
In Brief Review of: IN THE BLOOD: On mothers, daughters and addiction / Arabella Byrne and Julia Hamilton.
In Brief Review of: AGAINST THE ODDS: Women pioneers of science / John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin.
In Brief Review of: THE BULLET: A memoir of madness, family and the asylums of the past / Tom Lee (Granta).
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Katherine Harvey. ‘Knights of Venus’: The rewards and risks of being the queen’s attendant. Review of: LADIES-IN-WAITING IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND / Caroline Dunn.
Rosamond McKitterick. Carolingian crack-up: How Charlemagne’s grandsons divided the spoils of empire. Review of: OATHBREAKERS: The war of brothers that shattered an empire and made medieval Europe / Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry.
Paul Zimansky. Salt lake cities: The long history of an inland sea. Review of: THE DEAD SEA: A 10,000-year history / Nir Arielli.
Sophie Pavell. Whose country?: Scotland’s land reform offers lessons for England. Review of: UNCOMMON GROUND: Rethinking our relationship with the countryside / Patrick Galbraith.
Richard Smyth. Pleasant king: Nature, the countryside, sport and village life in spring. Review of: SPRING IS THE ONLY SEASON: How it works, what it does and why it matters / Simon Barnes -- SPRING: The story of a season / Michael Morpurgo.
Alice Albinia. History from below: Countercultures in South America. Review of: PATRIA: Lost countries of South America / Laurence Blair.
In Brief Review of: EDINBURGH: The autobiography / Alan Taylor, editor.
In Brief Review of: SKIES OF THUNDER: The deadly World War II mission over the roof of the world / Caroline Alexander.
In Brief Review of: 2016 / Sarah Hesketh (CB Editions). "This short, bracing book grew out of the author’s PhD thesis on using interview transcripts in poetic practice and comprises unnamed people speaking on the key events of 2016."
Featured
Mary Beard (from the current issue landing page). 04/29/2025: When did the Romans get up in the morning?
Frances Wilson. An unhealthy addiction: The public’s ‘co-dependent’ relationship with Diana. Review of: DIANAWORLD: An obsession / Edward White.
Charles Foster. Looking for something: The modern hunger for religious experience. Review of: LIVING IN WONDER: Finding mystery and meaning in a secular age / Rod Dreher -- THE SPIRITUALITY GAP: Searching for meaning in a secular age / Abi Millar.
Jane Humphries. The wages of gender: Why workplace inequalities persist. Review of: PATRIARCHY INC: What we get wrong about gender equality and why men still win at work / Cordelia Fine.
Norma Clarke. A voice for our times: Oliver Goldsmith, versatile stylist and Irish insider-outsider in Georgian London. Review of: THE CITIZEN OF THE WORLD / Oliver Goldsmith; edited by James Watt (Cambridge University Press) -- THE VICAR OF WAKEFIELD / Oliver Goldsmith; edited by Aileen Douglas and Ian Campbell Ross (Cambridge University Press).
Literature
Min Wild. The knell of parting day: The harsh realities of rural life revealed in churchyard verse. Review of: CHURCHYARD POETICS: Landscape, labour, and the legacy of genre / James Metcalf (Oxford University Press).
Boris Dralyuk. Empire’s fall: The shifting boundaries of Russian literature. Review of: THE NEW CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE / Simon Franklin, Rebecca Reich and Emma Widdis, editors (Cambridge University Press).
Bryan Karetnyk. Before and after the thaw: Poetry about the very idea of Russia and its past, present and future. Review of: HOLY WINTER 20/21 / Maria Stepanova; translated by Sasha Dugdale -- THE FREEST SPEECH IN RUSSIA: Poetry unbound, 1989–2022 / Stephanie Sandler (Princeton University Press).
Christopher Shrimpton. Wait, escape, wait again: A mother and her children flee an abusive relationship. Review of: NESTING / Roisín O’Donnell.
Lily Isaacs. We are trying to connect: Consolation, yearning and acceptance at a tourist call centre. Review of: CALLS MAY BE RECORDED FOR TRAINING AND MONITORING PURPOSES / Katharina Vockmer.
Eri Hotta. A life in orange: Absent fathers and nuclear fears. Review of: WILDCAT DOME / Yuko Tsushima; translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.
Nina Allan. Speaking atonally: Disability, difference and the search for true inclusivity. Review of: HUNCHBACK / Saou Ichikawa; translated by Polly Barton.
In Brief Review of: ONE WOMAN SHOW / Christine Coulson ("Christine Coulson earned her expertise in museums through a twenty-five-year career as a writer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and One Woman Show, her second novel, capitalizes on that experience through its format: the novel is told via a series of exhibition wall labels.")
Arts
Francesca Happé. All the mask-wearers: A film made by neurodivergent artists. Review of the film THE STIMMING POOL.
Ann Cooper Albright. Dance moves: Women’s choreography as a force for change. Review of: WILD GRACE: The untamed women of modern dance / Sara Veale.
Natasha Lehrer. A Freudian hour: ‘Compelling, suggestive, haunting’: a new play by Deborah Levy. Review of 50 MINUTES, Theater Neumarkt, Zurich, until May 7.
Anna Parker. Refugee avant-garde: How émigré artists brought modernist ideas to Britain. Review of: THE ALIENATION EFFECT: How Central European émigrés transformed the British twentieth century / Owen Hatherley.
Anson Rabinbach. A very Viennese whitewash: Modern art’s promise to redeem Austrian culture – without the Jews. Review of: VANISHING VIENNA: Modernism, philosemitism, and Jews in a postwar city / Frances Tanzer.
Irina Dumitrescu. Making a name for herself: In search of Marie de France. (Essay)
Medicine
Fay Bound Alberti. Rogue male: Medical power unchecked. Review of: THE SLEEP ROOM: A very British medical scandal / Jon Stock.
In Brief Review of: IN THE BLOOD: On mothers, daughters and addiction / Arabella Byrne and Julia Hamilton.
In Brief Review of: AGAINST THE ODDS: Women pioneers of science / John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin.
In Brief Review of: THE BULLET: A memoir of madness, family and the asylums of the past / Tom Lee (Granta).
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Katherine Harvey. ‘Knights of Venus’: The rewards and risks of being the queen’s attendant. Review of: LADIES-IN-WAITING IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND / Caroline Dunn.
Rosamond McKitterick. Carolingian crack-up: How Charlemagne’s grandsons divided the spoils of empire. Review of: OATHBREAKERS: The war of brothers that shattered an empire and made medieval Europe / Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry.
Paul Zimansky. Salt lake cities: The long history of an inland sea. Review of: THE DEAD SEA: A 10,000-year history / Nir Arielli.
Sophie Pavell. Whose country?: Scotland’s land reform offers lessons for England. Review of: UNCOMMON GROUND: Rethinking our relationship with the countryside / Patrick Galbraith.
Richard Smyth. Pleasant king: Nature, the countryside, sport and village life in spring. Review of: SPRING IS THE ONLY SEASON: How it works, what it does and why it matters / Simon Barnes -- SPRING: The story of a season / Michael Morpurgo.
Alice Albinia. History from below: Countercultures in South America. Review of: PATRIA: Lost countries of South America / Laurence Blair.
In Brief Review of: EDINBURGH: The autobiography / Alan Taylor, editor.
In Brief Review of: SKIES OF THUNDER: The deadly World War II mission over the roof of the world / Caroline Alexander.
In Brief Review of: 2016 / Sarah Hesketh (CB Editions). "This short, bracing book grew out of the author’s PhD thesis on using interview transcripts in poetic practice and comprises unnamed people speaking on the key events of 2016."
66featherbear
WaPo May 2025
Ron Charles. 05/01/2025: Carl Hiaasen is back and as ridiculous as ever. Review of: Fever Beach: A Novel / Carl Hiaasen.
Louis Bayard. 05/01/2025: James Gandolfini was so much more than Tony Soprano. Review of: Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend / Jason Bailey.
Susan Coll. 05/01/2025: A year in the life of a 60-year-old runaway (from marriage). Review of: Went to London, Took the Dog: The Diary of a 60-Year-Old Runaway / Nina Stibbe.
Robert Rubsam. 05/01/2025: ‘Journey to the Edge of Life’ tells of a literary pilgrimage. Review of 4 newly translated novels: Journey to the Edge of Life / Tezer Özlü, translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely -- The Unworthy: A Novel / Agustina Bazterrica, translated from Spanish by Sarah Moses -- The Frog in the Throat / Markus Werner, translated from German by Michael Hofmann -- The Living and the Rest / José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/02/2025: Chemical makers knew the harms. It didn’t matter. Review of: They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals / Mariah Blake.
Marcela Davison Avilés. 05/05/2025: Isabel Allende’s new novel sends an adventurous reporter to war. Review of: My Name Is Emilia del Valle: A Novel / Isabel Allende; translator Frances Riddle.
Elizabeth Hand. 05/05/2025: In Florence Knapp’s dazzling debut, a name can change destiny. Review of: The Names: a novel / Florence Knapp.
Malcolm Forbes. 05/06/2025: ‘The Director’ revisits a filmmaker’s deal with the devil during WWII. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann.
Manuel Roig-Franzia. 05/07/2025: A wild ride with the ‘Atta-Girl’ pilots who helped win World War II. Review of: Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II / Becky Aikman.
Rachelle Bergstein. 05/08/2025: Judy Blume wrote honestly about teen sex. At 50, ‘Forever’ endures. Regarding Forever ... / Judy Blume.
Ron Charles. 05/08/2025: ‘Sleep,’ by Honor Jones, is a hypnotic debut. Review of Sleep: a novel / Honor Jones.
Seung Min Kim, Lisa Mascaro, & Zeke Miller. WaPo, 05/08/2025: President Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. "President Donald Trump has abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda."
Michael Dirda. 05/08/2025: Disillusioned by politics, I read these books to get out of my slump. Some books remarked upon: The Serpent Under / Bonnie McBird -- The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World / William Dalrymple -- The Railway Conspiracy (A Dee and Lao Mystery Book 2) / SJ Rozan & John Shen Yen Nee -- From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey / Edward Gorey; Tom Fitzharris, editor. And many more.
Casey Schwartz. 05/09/2025: ‘Melting Point’ revisits the push to move Europe’s Jews to Texas. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Maggie Lange. 05/09/2025: The goofy, devious, alarming world of big data for anxious parents. Review of: Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age / Amanda Hess.
Sophia Nguyen. 05/09/2025: Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.
Jenny G. Zhang. 05/10/2025: This book strips away the orange peel to ask what fruit means. Review of: Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange / Katie Goh.
Donald Liebenson. 05/11/2025: Dave Barry looks back at growing up without growing up. Review of: Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up / Dave Barry.
Carl Hoffman. 05/13/2025: A gang controlled this Honduran barrio. Then a small NGO fought back. Review of: Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land / Ross Halperin (Liverwright).
Alex Shephard. 05/14/2025: ‘Original Sin’ indicts the ‘cover-up’ of a steeply declining Joe Biden. Review of: Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson.
Judith Warner. 05/14/2025: What families with ‘successful’ children can teach us about parenting. Review of: The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success / Susan Dominus.
Andrew Marzoni. 05/14/2025: A novel of the great Gen X icon: The misanthropic retail employee. Review of: Service (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) / John Tottenham.
Michael Dirda. 05/15/2025: What we get wrong about Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain: a life / Ron Chernow.
Joshua Keating. 05/15/2025: How American guns helped fuel the Irish Troubles. Review of: The Next One Is For You: A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA’s Secret American Army / Ali Watkins.
Leigh Haber. 05/15/2025: The author of ‘American Dirt’ again considers the pain of displacement. Review of: Speak to Me of Home: A Novel / Jeanine Cummins.
Sarah Chihaya. 05/16/2025: The ocean is swallowing San Francisco in this curious novel. Review of: Awake in the Floating City: A Novel / Susanna Kwan.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/16/2025: Many women ‘just don’t want to’ have kids. These books don’t blame them. Review of: Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century / Hannah Zeavin -- The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas about How to Be a Good Mom / Nancy Reddy -- Motherdom: Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths / Alex Bollen (Verso).
Jonathan Russell Clark. 05/18/2025: A debut both wildly imaginative and deeply emotional: Alex Foster’s first novel is about a futuristic high-speed travel system with troubling global consequences. Review of: Circular Motion / Alex Foster.
Stephanie Merry. 05/19/2025: How Miranda July’s ‘All Fours’ took on a life of its own. "A year later, the novel continues to spark conversations about women’s societal roles and middle age." Citation: All Fours: A Novel / Miranda July.
George Derek Musgrove. 05/19/2025: ‘The Afterlife of Malcolm X’ looks at how we’ve remembered an icon. Review of The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America / Mark Whitaker.
Herb Scribner. 05/20/2025: Major newspapers ran a summer reading list. AI made up book titles. "The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer printed a special section that included articles written using generative AI."
Sophia Nguyen. 05/20/2025: ‘Heart Lamp’ by Banu Mushtaq wins the International Booker Prize. "Mushtaq’s work, about the lives of Muslim and Dalit women in southern India, is the first collection of short stories to win the award." Anchor: Heart Lamp: selected stories / Banu Mushtaq; translator Deepa Bhasthi.
Charlie Jane Anders. 05/21/2025: These books prove worldbuilding is vital to sci-fi and fantasy. "New books by Nova Ren Suma, Neon Yang, Emily Tesh and Sayaka Murata revel in the ways that speculative fiction rewrites reality."
Nicole Krauss. 05/22/2025: The end of writing and reading will be the end of freedom.
Ron Charles. 05/22/2025: With ‘Flashlight,’ Susan Choi gets even more ambitious. Review of: Flashlight: A Novel / Susan Choi.
Alison Stewart. 05/22/2025: A look at the best and worst of the teen movie genre. Review of: Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies / Bruce Handy.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/23/2025: Rivers deserve to be protected. But are they ‘alive’? Review of: In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) / James C. Scott -- Is a River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Jacob Silverman. 05/24/2025: How Apple’s lucrative bet on China boosted the country’s tech sector. Review of: Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Nathan Smith. 05/25/2025: A sympathetic group portrait. Review of: Warhol’s Muses: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine / Laurence Leamer.
Katherine A. Powers. 05/26/2025: ‘Heart, Be at Peace’ is the perfect title for this Irish gem. Review of: Heart, Be at Peace: A Novel / Donal Ryan.
Sibbie O'Sullivan. 05/28/2025: Let’s talk about the Beatles: the records, the friendships and why they endure. Review of: Ribbons Of Rust: The Beatles' Recording History In Context: Volume 1 - July 1954 Through January 1963 / Robert Rodriguez & Jerry Hammack (Bemis Publishing Group) -- John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Martha McPhee. 05/28/2025: Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir about her famous mom is sad, dishy and relatable. Review of: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Karin Tanabe. 05/28/2025: ‘Consider Yourself Kissed’ nails the complex emotions of motherhood. Review of: Consider Yourself Kissed: A Novel / Jessica Stanley.
Mark Athitakis. 05/29/2025: Want to understand today’s culture wars? Look to the 1980s. Review of: The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s / Paul Elie.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/29/2025: This philosopher believed that beauty could save democracy. Review of: Democracy and Beauty: The Political Aesthetics of W. E. B. Du Bois (Leonard Hastings Schoff Lectures / Robert Gooding-Williams (Columbia University Press).
Walker Rutter-Bowman. 05/30/2025: What if AI therapists could make us our best selves? Review of Sike: A Novel / Fred Lunzer.
Ron Charles. 05/30/2025: ‘The Slip’ is a sweaty masterpiece. Review of: The Slip: A Novel / Lucas Schaefer. "I spent most of the week not just reading this story but cheering it on in a state of unhinged excitement."
Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Natanson. WaPo, 05/31/2025: It’s called the Library of Congress. But Trump claims it’s his. Temporarily unlocked "The case is the latest example of efforts by the Trump administration to erase the traditional lines that separate the branches of government."
Jake Kline. 05/31/2025: Edward St. Aubyn’s ‘Parallel Lines’ is bursting with characters and ideas. Anchor link: Parallel Lines: A Novel / Edward St. Aubyn.
Shane O'Neil. 05/31/2025: Capturing the vibrant life of LGBT activist Marsha P. Johnson. "Multidisciplinary artist Tourmaline talks with The Washington Post about her new biography of a New York City legend." Regarding Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson / Tourmaline. (Couldn't find a bibliographic citation in the body of the article/interview, by the way)
Ron Charles. 05/01/2025: Carl Hiaasen is back and as ridiculous as ever. Review of: Fever Beach: A Novel / Carl Hiaasen.
Louis Bayard. 05/01/2025: James Gandolfini was so much more than Tony Soprano. Review of: Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend / Jason Bailey.
Susan Coll. 05/01/2025: A year in the life of a 60-year-old runaway (from marriage). Review of: Went to London, Took the Dog: The Diary of a 60-Year-Old Runaway / Nina Stibbe.
Robert Rubsam. 05/01/2025: ‘Journey to the Edge of Life’ tells of a literary pilgrimage. Review of 4 newly translated novels: Journey to the Edge of Life / Tezer Özlü, translated from Turkish by Maureen Freely -- The Unworthy: A Novel / Agustina Bazterrica, translated from Spanish by Sarah Moses -- The Frog in the Throat / Markus Werner, translated from German by Michael Hofmann -- The Living and the Rest / José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/02/2025: Chemical makers knew the harms. It didn’t matter. Review of: They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals / Mariah Blake.
Marcela Davison Avilés. 05/05/2025: Isabel Allende’s new novel sends an adventurous reporter to war. Review of: My Name Is Emilia del Valle: A Novel / Isabel Allende; translator Frances Riddle.
Elizabeth Hand. 05/05/2025: In Florence Knapp’s dazzling debut, a name can change destiny. Review of: The Names: a novel / Florence Knapp.
Malcolm Forbes. 05/06/2025: ‘The Director’ revisits a filmmaker’s deal with the devil during WWII. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann.
Manuel Roig-Franzia. 05/07/2025: A wild ride with the ‘Atta-Girl’ pilots who helped win World War II. Review of: Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II / Becky Aikman.
Rachelle Bergstein. 05/08/2025: Judy Blume wrote honestly about teen sex. At 50, ‘Forever’ endures. Regarding Forever ... / Judy Blume.
Ron Charles. 05/08/2025: ‘Sleep,’ by Honor Jones, is a hypnotic debut. Review of Sleep: a novel / Honor Jones.
Seung Min Kim, Lisa Mascaro, & Zeke Miller. WaPo, 05/08/2025: President Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. "President Donald Trump has abruptly fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden as the White House continues to purge the federal government of those perceived to oppose the president and his agenda."
Michael Dirda. 05/08/2025: Disillusioned by politics, I read these books to get out of my slump. Some books remarked upon: The Serpent Under / Bonnie McBird -- The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World / William Dalrymple -- The Railway Conspiracy (A Dee and Lao Mystery Book 2) / SJ Rozan & John Shen Yen Nee -- From Ted to Tom: The Illustrated Envelopes of Edward Gorey / Edward Gorey; Tom Fitzharris, editor. And many more.
Casey Schwartz. 05/09/2025: ‘Melting Point’ revisits the push to move Europe’s Jews to Texas. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Maggie Lange. 05/09/2025: The goofy, devious, alarming world of big data for anxious parents. Review of: Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age / Amanda Hess.
Sophia Nguyen. 05/09/2025: Trump fires Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden.
Jenny G. Zhang. 05/10/2025: This book strips away the orange peel to ask what fruit means. Review of: Foreign Fruit: A Personal History of the Orange / Katie Goh.
Donald Liebenson. 05/11/2025: Dave Barry looks back at growing up without growing up. Review of: Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass: How I Went 77 Years Without Growing Up / Dave Barry.
Carl Hoffman. 05/13/2025: A gang controlled this Honduran barrio. Then a small NGO fought back. Review of: Bear Witness: The Pursuit of Justice in a Violent Land / Ross Halperin (Liverwright).
Alex Shephard. 05/14/2025: ‘Original Sin’ indicts the ‘cover-up’ of a steeply declining Joe Biden. Review of: Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson.
Judith Warner. 05/14/2025: What families with ‘successful’ children can teach us about parenting. Review of: The Family Dynamic: A Journey into the Mystery of Sibling Success / Susan Dominus.
Andrew Marzoni. 05/14/2025: A novel of the great Gen X icon: The misanthropic retail employee. Review of: Service (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents) / John Tottenham.
Michael Dirda. 05/15/2025: What we get wrong about Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain: a life / Ron Chernow.
Joshua Keating. 05/15/2025: How American guns helped fuel the Irish Troubles. Review of: The Next One Is For You: A True Story of Guns, Country, and the IRA’s Secret American Army / Ali Watkins.
Leigh Haber. 05/15/2025: The author of ‘American Dirt’ again considers the pain of displacement. Review of: Speak to Me of Home: A Novel / Jeanine Cummins.
Sarah Chihaya. 05/16/2025: The ocean is swallowing San Francisco in this curious novel. Review of: Awake in the Floating City: A Novel / Susanna Kwan.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/16/2025: Many women ‘just don’t want to’ have kids. These books don’t blame them. Review of: Mother Media: Hot and Cool Parenting in the Twentieth Century / Hannah Zeavin -- The Good Mother Myth: Unlearning Our Bad Ideas about How to Be a Good Mom / Nancy Reddy -- Motherdom: Breaking Free from Bad Science and Good Mother Myths / Alex Bollen (Verso).
Jonathan Russell Clark. 05/18/2025: A debut both wildly imaginative and deeply emotional: Alex Foster’s first novel is about a futuristic high-speed travel system with troubling global consequences. Review of: Circular Motion / Alex Foster.
Stephanie Merry. 05/19/2025: How Miranda July’s ‘All Fours’ took on a life of its own. "A year later, the novel continues to spark conversations about women’s societal roles and middle age." Citation: All Fours: A Novel / Miranda July.
George Derek Musgrove. 05/19/2025: ‘The Afterlife of Malcolm X’ looks at how we’ve remembered an icon. Review of The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon’s Enduring Impact on America / Mark Whitaker.
Herb Scribner. 05/20/2025: Major newspapers ran a summer reading list. AI made up book titles. "The Chicago Sun-Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer printed a special section that included articles written using generative AI."
Sophia Nguyen. 05/20/2025: ‘Heart Lamp’ by Banu Mushtaq wins the International Booker Prize. "Mushtaq’s work, about the lives of Muslim and Dalit women in southern India, is the first collection of short stories to win the award." Anchor: Heart Lamp: selected stories / Banu Mushtaq; translator Deepa Bhasthi.
Charlie Jane Anders. 05/21/2025: These books prove worldbuilding is vital to sci-fi and fantasy. "New books by Nova Ren Suma, Neon Yang, Emily Tesh and Sayaka Murata revel in the ways that speculative fiction rewrites reality."
Nicole Krauss. 05/22/2025: The end of writing and reading will be the end of freedom.
Ron Charles. 05/22/2025: With ‘Flashlight,’ Susan Choi gets even more ambitious. Review of: Flashlight: A Novel / Susan Choi.
Alison Stewart. 05/22/2025: A look at the best and worst of the teen movie genre. Review of: Hollywood High: A Totally Epic, Way Opinionated History of Teen Movies / Bruce Handy.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/23/2025: Rivers deserve to be protected. But are they ‘alive’? Review of: In Praise of Floods: The Untamed River and the Life It Brings (Yale Agrarian Studies Series) / James C. Scott -- Is a River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Jacob Silverman. 05/24/2025: How Apple’s lucrative bet on China boosted the country’s tech sector. Review of: Apple in China: The Capture of the World's Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Nathan Smith. 05/25/2025: A sympathetic group portrait. Review of: Warhol’s Muses: The Artists, Misfits, and Superstars Destroyed by the Factory Fame Machine / Laurence Leamer.
Katherine A. Powers. 05/26/2025: ‘Heart, Be at Peace’ is the perfect title for this Irish gem. Review of: Heart, Be at Peace: A Novel / Donal Ryan.
Sibbie O'Sullivan. 05/28/2025: Let’s talk about the Beatles: the records, the friendships and why they endure. Review of: Ribbons Of Rust: The Beatles' Recording History In Context: Volume 1 - July 1954 Through January 1963 / Robert Rodriguez & Jerry Hammack (Bemis Publishing Group) -- John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Martha McPhee. 05/28/2025: Molly Jong-Fast’s memoir about her famous mom is sad, dishy and relatable. Review of: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Karin Tanabe. 05/28/2025: ‘Consider Yourself Kissed’ nails the complex emotions of motherhood. Review of: Consider Yourself Kissed: A Novel / Jessica Stanley.
Mark Athitakis. 05/29/2025: Want to understand today’s culture wars? Look to the 1980s. Review of: The Last Supper: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s / Paul Elie.
Becca Rothfeld. 05/29/2025: This philosopher believed that beauty could save democracy. Review of: Democracy and Beauty: The Political Aesthetics of W. E. B. Du Bois (Leonard Hastings Schoff Lectures / Robert Gooding-Williams (Columbia University Press).
Walker Rutter-Bowman. 05/30/2025: What if AI therapists could make us our best selves? Review of Sike: A Novel / Fred Lunzer.
Ron Charles. 05/30/2025: ‘The Slip’ is a sweaty masterpiece. Review of: The Slip: A Novel / Lucas Schaefer. "I spent most of the week not just reading this story but cheering it on in a state of unhinged excitement."
Meryl Kornfield and Hannah Natanson. WaPo, 05/31/2025: It’s called the Library of Congress. But Trump claims it’s his. Temporarily unlocked "The case is the latest example of efforts by the Trump administration to erase the traditional lines that separate the branches of government."
Jake Kline. 05/31/2025: Edward St. Aubyn’s ‘Parallel Lines’ is bursting with characters and ideas. Anchor link: Parallel Lines: A Novel / Edward St. Aubyn.
Shane O'Neil. 05/31/2025: Capturing the vibrant life of LGBT activist Marsha P. Johnson. "Multidisciplinary artist Tourmaline talks with The Washington Post about her new biography of a New York City legend." Regarding Marsha: The Joy and Defiance of Marsha P. Johnson / Tourmaline. (Couldn't find a bibliographic citation in the body of the article/interview, by the way)
67featherbear
New Yorker May 2025
Adam Gopnick. 05/03/2025: What We Find When We Get Lost in Proust.
Anthony Lane. 05/05/2025: The Battling Memoirs of The New Yorker.
Lauren Michele Jackson. 05/10/2025: The Paradoxes of Feminine Muscle. Review of: A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting / Case Johnston.
Peter C. Baker. 05/11/2025: Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?
Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson. 05/13/2025: How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump. Excerpt from Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells. 05/19/2025: Can Sam Altman Be Trusted with the Future?. Review of: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI / Karen Hao -- The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future / Keach Hagey. See also NYT 05/14/2025 >70 featherbear:
Ann Goldstein. 05/25/2025: Alba de Céspedes’s Broadcasts Against Fascism. "During the Second World War, the Italian writer took to the radio, urging resistance to the pressures of tyranny." Translations of the transcripts, via Twitter.
Robin Wright. 05/26/2025: Torture and Tres Leches in Iran’s Most Notorious Prison. Regarding The Evin Prison Bakers' Club: Surviving Iran's Most Notorious Prisons in 16 Recipes / Sepideh Gholian; translator, Hessam Ashrafi.
Louis Menand. 05/26/2025: William F. Buckley, Jr., and the Invention of American Conservatism. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tannenhaus.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus. 05/28/2025: Why Good Ideas Die Quietly and Bad Ideas Go Viral. Review of: Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading / Nadia Asparouhova (The Dark Forest Collective).
Adelle Waldman. 05/31/2025: In Praise of Jane Austen’s Least Beloved Novel. "Part marriage plot, part novel about novels, “Northanger Abbey” is Austen’s strangest—and perhaps most underappreciated—work."
Adam Gopnick. 05/03/2025: What We Find When We Get Lost in Proust.
Anthony Lane. 05/05/2025: The Battling Memoirs of The New Yorker.
Lauren Michele Jackson. 05/10/2025: The Paradoxes of Feminine Muscle. Review of: A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting / Case Johnston.
Peter C. Baker. 05/11/2025: Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack?
Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson. 05/13/2025: How Joe Biden Handed the Presidency to Donald Trump. Excerpt from Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper & Alex Thompson.
Benjamin Wallace-Wells. 05/19/2025: Can Sam Altman Be Trusted with the Future?. Review of: Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI / Karen Hao -- The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future / Keach Hagey. See also NYT 05/14/2025 >70 featherbear:
Ann Goldstein. 05/25/2025: Alba de Céspedes’s Broadcasts Against Fascism. "During the Second World War, the Italian writer took to the radio, urging resistance to the pressures of tyranny." Translations of the transcripts, via Twitter.
Robin Wright. 05/26/2025: Torture and Tres Leches in Iran’s Most Notorious Prison. Regarding The Evin Prison Bakers' Club: Surviving Iran's Most Notorious Prisons in 16 Recipes / Sepideh Gholian; translator, Hessam Ashrafi.
Louis Menand. 05/26/2025: William F. Buckley, Jr., and the Invention of American Conservatism. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tannenhaus.
Gideon Lewis-Kraus. 05/28/2025: Why Good Ideas Die Quietly and Bad Ideas Go Viral. Review of: Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading / Nadia Asparouhova (The Dark Forest Collective).
Adelle Waldman. 05/31/2025: In Praise of Jane Austen’s Least Beloved Novel. "Part marriage plot, part novel about novels, “Northanger Abbey” is Austen’s strangest—and perhaps most underappreciated—work."
68featherbear
Literary Review (UK) May 2025
Sophie Oliver. The Once & Future Genius. Review of: Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife / Francesca Wade.
Nicola Shulman. Kind Hearts & Coronets. Review of: Dianaworld: An Obsession / Edward White.
Costica Bradatan. Descartes Be Damned. Review of: Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World / Graham Tomlin.
Joseph Hone. Start the Presses!. Review of: Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books / Eric Marshall White.
Howard Davies. Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up. Review of: Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead / Kenneth Rogoff.
Paul Genders. After All This Time. Review of: Parallel Lines / Edward St Aubyn.
Frances Wilson. All Yesterday’s Parties.
Sophie Oliver. The Once & Future Genius. Review of: Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife / Francesca Wade.
Nicola Shulman. Kind Hearts & Coronets. Review of: Dianaworld: An Obsession / Edward White.
Costica Bradatan. Descartes Be Damned. Review of: Blaise Pascal: The Man Who Made the Modern World / Graham Tomlin.
Joseph Hone. Start the Presses!. Review of: Johannes Gutenberg: A Biography in Books / Eric Marshall White.
Howard Davies. Greenbacks Down, First Editions Up. Review of: Our Dollar, Your Problem: An Insider’s View of Seven Turbulent Decades of Global Finance, and the Road Ahead / Kenneth Rogoff.
Paul Genders. After All This Time. Review of: Parallel Lines / Edward St Aubyn.
Frances Wilson. All Yesterday’s Parties.
69featherbear
LARB May 2025
Melina Moe. 05/02/2025: How Librarians Found Themselves on the Front Line of the Culture War. Regarding That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America / Amanda Jones.
Bathsheba Demuth. 05/05/2025: The Teeming Earth. Review of: Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life / Ferris Jabr.
Kai Maristed. 05/06/2025: Making Art Under Fascism. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann. Translated by Ross Benjamin.
Nathan Jefferson. 05/08/2025: Hail, Caesar. Review of the production JULIUS CAESAR, Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles, April 11, 2025.
Greg Barnhisel. 05/09/2025: Clean Energy, Dirt on Our Hands. Review of: Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future / Vince Beiser.
Greg Barnhisel. 05/10/2025: Listening to the Nonhuman World: On Strategies for Saving the Biosphere. Review of: Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth / Karen Bakker -- The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future / Craig M. Kauffman and Pamela L. Martin.
Norrell Edwards. 05/13/2025: Saving the NEH: Dr. Norrell Edwards considers the Trump administration’s termination of National Endowment for the Humanities grants.
Nils Gilman. 05/15/2025: The Blob Gazes into the Abyss. Review of: World to Come: The Return of Trump and the End of the Old Order / Josef Braml and Mathew Burrows (Brixton Ink).
Adam Morgan. 05/16/2025: We Don’t Have Any Reserves: on the impact of Trump’s coup at the NEA for small publishers and literary magazines.
Aaron Boehmer. 05/17/2025: Alt-Media, Then and Now: the visual language of underground and alternative newspapers and how they subvert mainstream media through design.
Ellen Wayland Smith. 05/20/2025: What Would It Take to Re-Sacralize Nature? Review of: Is A River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Mieke Marple. 05/21/2025: Bureaucracy Versus the Apocalypse. Review of: Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service / Michael Lewis.
Diana Heald. 05/22/2025: We’re Not Happy Until You’re Not Happy. Review of: Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
Ed Simon. 05/23/2025: Ross Douthat’s Tame God. Review of: Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious / Ross Douthat.
Sarah Moorhouse. 05/24/2025: The Rapturous Power of Words. Review of: The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Sublime Language / Edward Wilson-Lee (William Collins).
Pria Anand. 05/24/2025: Terminal Delirium. Review of: Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words / Michael Erard.
David Shipko. 05/26/2025: There Is No Such Thing as Green Capitalism: climate denialism in speculative literature and culture.
Devin Thomas O'Shea. 05/27/2025: Marx: The Fourth Boom. Review of: Karl Marx in America / Andrew Hartman.
Caroline Tracey. 05/27/2025: Form, Object, Art. Review of: The Company / Verónica Gerber Bicecci. Translated by Christina MacSweeney ("the experimental book-art of Mexican author Verónica Gerber Bicecci")
Bekah Waalkes. 05/28/2025: Stop Living Inside Literature. Review of: Journey to the Edge of Life / Tezer Özlü. Translated by Maureen Freely (Transit Books).
Matthew Longo. 05/29/2025: An Asynchronous Patchwork. Review of: Past Progress: Time and Politics at the Borders of China, Russia, and Korea / Ed Pulford -- Mirrorlands: Russia, China, and Journeys in Between / Ed Pulford.
Kelly Hammond. 05/30/2025: Grassroots and Guerrillas. Review of: The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II / Stephen R. Platt -- Uneasy Allies: Sino-American Relations at the Grassroots, 1937-1949 / Zach Fredman and Judd Kinzley (Cambridge University Press).
Paul North. 05/30/2025: He’s a Cretin but We’ll Manage Him. Regarding The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte / Karl Marx.
Tianyi. 05/31/2025: Not the End of the Broken World. Review of the story collection Chronicle of Drifting / Yuki Tanaka.
Melina Moe. 05/02/2025: How Librarians Found Themselves on the Front Line of the Culture War. Regarding That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America / Amanda Jones.
Bathsheba Demuth. 05/05/2025: The Teeming Earth. Review of: Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life / Ferris Jabr.
Kai Maristed. 05/06/2025: Making Art Under Fascism. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann. Translated by Ross Benjamin.
Nathan Jefferson. 05/08/2025: Hail, Caesar. Review of the production JULIUS CAESAR, Heritage Square Museum, Los Angeles, April 11, 2025.
Greg Barnhisel. 05/09/2025: Clean Energy, Dirt on Our Hands. Review of: Power Metal: The Race for the Resources That Will Shape the Future / Vince Beiser.
Greg Barnhisel. 05/10/2025: Listening to the Nonhuman World: On Strategies for Saving the Biosphere. Review of: Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth / Karen Bakker -- The Politics of Rights of Nature: Strategies for Building a More Sustainable Future / Craig M. Kauffman and Pamela L. Martin.
Norrell Edwards. 05/13/2025: Saving the NEH: Dr. Norrell Edwards considers the Trump administration’s termination of National Endowment for the Humanities grants.
Nils Gilman. 05/15/2025: The Blob Gazes into the Abyss. Review of: World to Come: The Return of Trump and the End of the Old Order / Josef Braml and Mathew Burrows (Brixton Ink).
Adam Morgan. 05/16/2025: We Don’t Have Any Reserves: on the impact of Trump’s coup at the NEA for small publishers and literary magazines.
Aaron Boehmer. 05/17/2025: Alt-Media, Then and Now: the visual language of underground and alternative newspapers and how they subvert mainstream media through design.
Ellen Wayland Smith. 05/20/2025: What Would It Take to Re-Sacralize Nature? Review of: Is A River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Mieke Marple. 05/21/2025: Bureaucracy Versus the Apocalypse. Review of: Who Is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service / Michael Lewis.
Diana Heald. 05/22/2025: We’re Not Happy Until You’re Not Happy. Review of: Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
Ed Simon. 05/23/2025: Ross Douthat’s Tame God. Review of: Believe: Why Everyone Should Be Religious / Ross Douthat.
Sarah Moorhouse. 05/24/2025: The Rapturous Power of Words. Review of: The Grammar of Angels: A Search for the Magical Powers of Sublime Language / Edward Wilson-Lee (William Collins).
Pria Anand. 05/24/2025: Terminal Delirium. Review of: Bye Bye I Love You: The Story of Our First and Last Words / Michael Erard.
David Shipko. 05/26/2025: There Is No Such Thing as Green Capitalism: climate denialism in speculative literature and culture.
Devin Thomas O'Shea. 05/27/2025: Marx: The Fourth Boom. Review of: Karl Marx in America / Andrew Hartman.
Caroline Tracey. 05/27/2025: Form, Object, Art. Review of: The Company / Verónica Gerber Bicecci. Translated by Christina MacSweeney ("the experimental book-art of Mexican author Verónica Gerber Bicecci")
Bekah Waalkes. 05/28/2025: Stop Living Inside Literature. Review of: Journey to the Edge of Life / Tezer Özlü. Translated by Maureen Freely (Transit Books).
Matthew Longo. 05/29/2025: An Asynchronous Patchwork. Review of: Past Progress: Time and Politics at the Borders of China, Russia, and Korea / Ed Pulford -- Mirrorlands: Russia, China, and Journeys in Between / Ed Pulford.
Kelly Hammond. 05/30/2025: Grassroots and Guerrillas. Review of: The Raider: The Untold Story of a Renegade Marine and the Birth of U.S. Special Forces in World War II / Stephen R. Platt -- Uneasy Allies: Sino-American Relations at the Grassroots, 1937-1949 / Zach Fredman and Judd Kinzley (Cambridge University Press).
Paul North. 05/30/2025: He’s a Cretin but We’ll Manage Him. Regarding The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte / Karl Marx.
Tianyi. 05/31/2025: Not the End of the Broken World. Review of the story collection Chronicle of Drifting / Yuki Tanaka.
70featherbear
NYT May 2025
Ian Volner. 05/01/2025: The Dirty Little Secret Hiding in Your Garbage Can. Review of: WASTE WARS: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash / Alexander Clapp.
Lauryn Stallings. 05/02/2025: An Archive of Black Resistance, in Dispatches From Bookstores. Review of: Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores / Katie Mitchell. (A photo book)
Dustin Illingworth. 05/03/2025: Survivors of War and Disaster, Seeking Refuge in Math. Review of the novel THE DESERTERS / Mathias Énard; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
David Matthews. 05/03/2025: Ocean Vuong Was Ready to Kill. Then a Moment of Grace Changed His Life: the interview.
J.D. Biersdorfer. 05/04/2025: José Cuervo: The Man, the Legend, the Equine Tequila Shots. Review of: TEQUILA WARS: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico / Ted Genoways.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/04/2025: They Were Identical ‘Twinnies’ Who Charmed Orwell, Camus and More. Review of: THE DAZZLING PAGET SISTERS: The English Twins Who Captivated Literary Europe / Ariane Bankes (McNally Editions).
Isabelle Taft. 05/04/2025: Utopian Dreamers Founded This Alabama City. Now, a Fight Over Books Is Dividing It.
Jennifer Harlan. 05/04/2025: You’ve Attended the Tale of Sweeney Todd. Now Hear Mrs. Lovett’s Story. Review of the epistolary novel: THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett / David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark.
Emma Goldberg. 05/05/2025: In Multilevel Marketing, Sleight of Hand Is Simply the Rule of Doing Business. Review of: LITTLE BOSSES EVERYWHERE: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America / Bridget Read.
Alexandra Alter, Joumana Khatib, and Gregory Cowles. 05/05/2025: Pulitzer Prizes 2025: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
J. Hoberman. 05/06/2025: How to Make Art Under the Nazis (Without Losing Your Soul). Review of: THE DIRECTOR / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin.
Sarah Lyall. 05/06/2025: Was No. 10 Rillington Place the Deadliest Address in London? Review of: THE PEEPSHOW: The Murders at Rillington Place / Kate Summerscale ("the stranger-than-fiction story of a sensational murder case that rocked 1950s London.")
Lauren Christensen. 05/06/2025: Wildfires, and an Unlikely Romance, Light Up a Lost Paradise. Review of the novel ETERNAL SUMMER / Franziska Gänsler; translated by Imogen Taylor (Other Press).
Oyinkan Braithwaite. 05/06/2025: Two Ambitious Sisters Are Each Other’s Biggest Supporters — and Saboteurs. Review of the debut novel: THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER / Jemimah Wei.
Hannah Holland. 05/06/2025: Regrets Aren’t the Only Thing Haunting This Grieving Family. Review of the novel THE MANOR OF DREAMS / Christina Li ("two sets of women navigate both a contested inheritance and paranormal activity after a devastating death.")
Alexandra Alter. 05/06/2025: ‘James’ Won the Pulitzer, but Not Without Complications: In an unusual but not unprecedented move, the prize board chose a fourth option after it couldn’t agree on the three less-heralded finalists. Temporarily Unlocked
Mai-Lee Chai. 05/07/2025: For Women Migrants in the Arabian Peninsula, Work Often Means Violence. Review of the novel: GULF / Mo Ogrodnik.
Amelia Nierenberg. 05/08/2025: Agatha Christie, Who Died in 1976, Will See You in Class. "An avatar of the long-dead British novelist is “teaching” an online writing course. But do we want to learn from a digital prosthetic built by artificial intelligence?"
Ezekiel J. Emanuel. 05/09/2025: How to Raise Super-Achievers? Hint: It’s Not the Cereal. Review of: THE FAMILY DYNAMIC: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success / Susan Dominus.
Gregory Maguire. 05/09/2025: Pick Up This Book and Be Spirited Away. Review of: THE VILLAGE BEYOND THE MIST / Sachiko Kashiwaba; illustrated by Miho Satake; translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa (purportedly the inspiration for Spirited Away)
Sharon Otterman. 05/09/2025: A Year Ago, Columbia Security Was Hands-Off at a Protest. Not This Time. "When demonstrators occupied the university’s main library on Wednesday, campus security forces intervened aggressively. The occupation ended with arrests hours later." Temporarily unlocked
Elisabeth Egan. 05/11/2025: Is the Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? Review of: HOW TO BE WELL: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time / Amy Larocca.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/11/2025: Odd Couple Roommates, Bonded by Pills and Precarity. Review of: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS / Ocean Vuong.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/13/2025: A Damning Portrait of an Enfeebled Biden Protected by His Inner Circle. Review of: ORIGINAL SIN: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/14/2025: 250 Years of Capitalism: Soulless, Exploitative and All but Unstoppable. Review of: CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Kwame Anthony Appiah. New York Times Magazine, 05/14/2025: Is It Ethical to Buy Used Books and Music? "The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on what consumers owe to artists."
Charlotte Druckman. 05/15/2025: Restaurant Critic Confidential. Review of: HUNGER LIKE A THIRST: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table / Besha Rodell. ("a fascinating capsule history of restaurant criticism.")
Hannah Beech. 05/15/2025: Apple Used China to Make a Profit. What China Got in Return Is Scarier. Review of: APPLE IN CHINA: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Sadie Stein. 05/15/2025: He’s Made a Home at the World’s Most Popular Cemetery. Review of: The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Père-Lachaise / Benoît Gallot. "In a new book, Benoît Gallot explains what it takes to run Père-Lachaise, where he lives with his wife, children and, he insists, no ghosts."
Maya C. Miller and Carl Hulse. NYT, 05/15/2025: Lawmakers in Both Parties Resist Trump’s Attempt to Seize Control of Their Library. Temporarily unlocked.
Tim Wu. 05/19/2025: Hey ChatGPT, Which One of These Is the Real Sam Altman? Review of: EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI / Karen Hao -- THE OPTIMIST: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future / Keach Hagey. See also New Yorker 05/19/2025 >67 featherbear:
Benjamin Mullin. 05/19/2025: 14 Million Books Later, Jim Butcher Thinks His Wizard Detective Needs a Hug. "Now in its 25th year, The Dresden Files and its author have survived the darkness, fictional and otherwise."
Sam Thielman. 05/20/2025: These Boomer Radicals in Vermont Just Want to Be ‘Good Progressives.’ Review of the graphic novel SPENT: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel.
Lauren Elkin. 05/20/2025: A Brilliantly Offbeat Novel of Art and Women’s Wrestling in 1970s New York. Review of the reprint of the 1972 novel TO SMITHEREENS / Rosalyn Drexler.
Sarah Lyall. 05/21/2025: Murder, Lust and Obscene Wealth in a City on Edge. Review of the novel THE DOORMAN / Chris Pavone.
Louis Bayard. 05/23/2025: Sex, Money and Death in Connecticut? We Ate It Up. Review of: MURDER IN THE DOLLHOUSE: The Jennifer Dulos Story / Rich Cohen.
Elisha Cooper. 05/23/2025: The Beauty of Imperfect Children’s Book Art. "In the work of artists I admire, all the training and discipline come out in an act of letting go: a splotch of ink, a wayward wash of color."
Kevin Peraino. 05/24/2025: Separated as Toddlers, Raised on Opposite Sides of the World. Review of: DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/25/2025: How Sex and Religion Collided in 1980s Culture. Review of: THE LAST SUPPER: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s / Paul Elie.
Olivia Waite. 05/25/2025: The Essential Terry Pratchett. "The prolific fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, infused his writing with empathy and humor. Here’s where to start."
Emma Goldberg. 05/25/2025: 1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books. "For three decades at Columbia Journalism School, Sam Freedman has encouraged students to try long-form narratives. His brand of tough love has paid dividends."
Ainslie Hogarth. 05/27/2025: A New Stephen King Novel Asks, Does the World Have Heroes Anymore? Review of NEVER FLINCH / Stephen King.
Violet Kupersmith. 05/27/2025: Kidnapped by Corsican Rebels, a Rich Girl Joins the Revolution. Review of: THE BOMBSHELL / Darrow Farr.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/28/2025: A Splendid New Biography of Gauguin Separates the Man From the Myth. Review of: WILD THING: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
Cree LeFavour. 05/30/2025: A Memoir of Family Dysfunction Awash in Liquor and Leafy Greens. Review of: THE SPINACH KING: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty / John Seabrook.
Norimitsu Onishi. 05/30/2025: The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Library. That’s Now a Problem.
Alexandra Alter. 05/31/2025: The Devastating Book Erica Jong Always Knew Her Daughter Would Write. How to Lose Your Mother: a daughter's memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Chelsea Leu. 05/31/2025: A Memoir of Divorce and Xenophobia, Narrated by a Clam. Review of the novel CLAM DOWN: A Metamorphosis / Anelise Chen.
Ian Volner. 05/01/2025: The Dirty Little Secret Hiding in Your Garbage Can. Review of: WASTE WARS: The Wild Afterlife of Your Trash / Alexander Clapp.
Lauryn Stallings. 05/02/2025: An Archive of Black Resistance, in Dispatches From Bookstores. Review of: Prose to the People: A Celebration of Black Bookstores / Katie Mitchell. (A photo book)
Dustin Illingworth. 05/03/2025: Survivors of War and Disaster, Seeking Refuge in Math. Review of the novel THE DESERTERS / Mathias Énard; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
David Matthews. 05/03/2025: Ocean Vuong Was Ready to Kill. Then a Moment of Grace Changed His Life: the interview.
J.D. Biersdorfer. 05/04/2025: José Cuervo: The Man, the Legend, the Equine Tequila Shots. Review of: TEQUILA WARS: José Cuervo and the Bloody Struggle for the Spirit of Mexico / Ted Genoways.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/04/2025: They Were Identical ‘Twinnies’ Who Charmed Orwell, Camus and More. Review of: THE DAZZLING PAGET SISTERS: The English Twins Who Captivated Literary Europe / Ariane Bankes (McNally Editions).
Isabelle Taft. 05/04/2025: Utopian Dreamers Founded This Alabama City. Now, a Fight Over Books Is Dividing It.
Jennifer Harlan. 05/04/2025: You’ve Attended the Tale of Sweeney Todd. Now Hear Mrs. Lovett’s Story. Review of the epistolary novel: THE BUTCHER’S DAUGHTER: The Hitherto Untold Story of Mrs. Lovett / David Demchuk and Corinne Leigh Clark.
Emma Goldberg. 05/05/2025: In Multilevel Marketing, Sleight of Hand Is Simply the Rule of Doing Business. Review of: LITTLE BOSSES EVERYWHERE: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America / Bridget Read.
Alexandra Alter, Joumana Khatib, and Gregory Cowles. 05/05/2025: Pulitzer Prizes 2025: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists. TEMPORARILY UNLOCKED.
J. Hoberman. 05/06/2025: How to Make Art Under the Nazis (Without Losing Your Soul). Review of: THE DIRECTOR / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin.
Sarah Lyall. 05/06/2025: Was No. 10 Rillington Place the Deadliest Address in London? Review of: THE PEEPSHOW: The Murders at Rillington Place / Kate Summerscale ("the stranger-than-fiction story of a sensational murder case that rocked 1950s London.")
Lauren Christensen. 05/06/2025: Wildfires, and an Unlikely Romance, Light Up a Lost Paradise. Review of the novel ETERNAL SUMMER / Franziska Gänsler; translated by Imogen Taylor (Other Press).
Oyinkan Braithwaite. 05/06/2025: Two Ambitious Sisters Are Each Other’s Biggest Supporters — and Saboteurs. Review of the debut novel: THE ORIGINAL DAUGHTER / Jemimah Wei.
Hannah Holland. 05/06/2025: Regrets Aren’t the Only Thing Haunting This Grieving Family. Review of the novel THE MANOR OF DREAMS / Christina Li ("two sets of women navigate both a contested inheritance and paranormal activity after a devastating death.")
Alexandra Alter. 05/06/2025: ‘James’ Won the Pulitzer, but Not Without Complications: In an unusual but not unprecedented move, the prize board chose a fourth option after it couldn’t agree on the three less-heralded finalists. Temporarily Unlocked
Mai-Lee Chai. 05/07/2025: For Women Migrants in the Arabian Peninsula, Work Often Means Violence. Review of the novel: GULF / Mo Ogrodnik.
Amelia Nierenberg. 05/08/2025: Agatha Christie, Who Died in 1976, Will See You in Class. "An avatar of the long-dead British novelist is “teaching” an online writing course. But do we want to learn from a digital prosthetic built by artificial intelligence?"
Ezekiel J. Emanuel. 05/09/2025: How to Raise Super-Achievers? Hint: It’s Not the Cereal. Review of: THE FAMILY DYNAMIC: A Journey Into the Mystery of Sibling Success / Susan Dominus.
Gregory Maguire. 05/09/2025: Pick Up This Book and Be Spirited Away. Review of: THE VILLAGE BEYOND THE MIST / Sachiko Kashiwaba; illustrated by Miho Satake; translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa (purportedly the inspiration for Spirited Away)
Sharon Otterman. 05/09/2025: A Year Ago, Columbia Security Was Hands-Off at a Protest. Not This Time. "When demonstrators occupied the university’s main library on Wednesday, campus security forces intervened aggressively. The occupation ended with arrests hours later." Temporarily unlocked
Elisabeth Egan. 05/11/2025: Is the Trillion-Dollar Wellness Industry a Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? Review of: HOW TO BE WELL: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time / Amy Larocca.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/11/2025: Odd Couple Roommates, Bonded by Pills and Precarity. Review of: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS / Ocean Vuong.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/13/2025: A Damning Portrait of an Enfeebled Biden Protected by His Inner Circle. Review of: ORIGINAL SIN: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again / Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/14/2025: 250 Years of Capitalism: Soulless, Exploitative and All but Unstoppable. Review of: CAPITALISM AND ITS CRITICS: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Kwame Anthony Appiah. New York Times Magazine, 05/14/2025: Is It Ethical to Buy Used Books and Music? "The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on what consumers owe to artists."
Charlotte Druckman. 05/15/2025: Restaurant Critic Confidential. Review of: HUNGER LIKE A THIRST: From Food Stamps to Fine Dining, a Restaurant Critic Finds Her Place at the Table / Besha Rodell. ("a fascinating capsule history of restaurant criticism.")
Hannah Beech. 05/15/2025: Apple Used China to Make a Profit. What China Got in Return Is Scarier. Review of: APPLE IN CHINA: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Sadie Stein. 05/15/2025: He’s Made a Home at the World’s Most Popular Cemetery. Review of: The Secret Life of a Cemetery: The Wild Nature and Enchanting Lore of Père-Lachaise / Benoît Gallot. "In a new book, Benoît Gallot explains what it takes to run Père-Lachaise, where he lives with his wife, children and, he insists, no ghosts."
Maya C. Miller and Carl Hulse. NYT, 05/15/2025: Lawmakers in Both Parties Resist Trump’s Attempt to Seize Control of Their Library. Temporarily unlocked.
Tim Wu. 05/19/2025: Hey ChatGPT, Which One of These Is the Real Sam Altman? Review of: EMPIRE OF AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI / Karen Hao -- THE OPTIMIST: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future / Keach Hagey. See also New Yorker 05/19/2025 >67 featherbear:
Benjamin Mullin. 05/19/2025: 14 Million Books Later, Jim Butcher Thinks His Wizard Detective Needs a Hug. "Now in its 25th year, The Dresden Files and its author have survived the darkness, fictional and otherwise."
Sam Thielman. 05/20/2025: These Boomer Radicals in Vermont Just Want to Be ‘Good Progressives.’ Review of the graphic novel SPENT: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel.
Lauren Elkin. 05/20/2025: A Brilliantly Offbeat Novel of Art and Women’s Wrestling in 1970s New York. Review of the reprint of the 1972 novel TO SMITHEREENS / Rosalyn Drexler.
Sarah Lyall. 05/21/2025: Murder, Lust and Obscene Wealth in a City on Edge. Review of the novel THE DOORMAN / Chris Pavone.
Louis Bayard. 05/23/2025: Sex, Money and Death in Connecticut? We Ate It Up. Review of: MURDER IN THE DOLLHOUSE: The Jennifer Dulos Story / Rich Cohen.
Elisha Cooper. 05/23/2025: The Beauty of Imperfect Children’s Book Art. "In the work of artists I admire, all the training and discipline come out in an act of letting go: a splotch of ink, a wayward wash of color."
Kevin Peraino. 05/24/2025: Separated as Toddlers, Raised on Opposite Sides of the World. Review of: DAUGHTERS OF THE BAMBOO GROVE: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick.
Alexandra Jacobs. 05/25/2025: How Sex and Religion Collided in 1980s Culture. Review of: THE LAST SUPPER: Art, Faith, Sex, and Controversy in the 1980s / Paul Elie.
Olivia Waite. 05/25/2025: The Essential Terry Pratchett. "The prolific fantasy author, best known for his Discworld series, infused his writing with empathy and humor. Here’s where to start."
Emma Goldberg. 05/25/2025: 1 Writing Class, 35 Years, 113 Deals, 95 Books. "For three decades at Columbia Journalism School, Sam Freedman has encouraged students to try long-form narratives. His brand of tough love has paid dividends."
Ainslie Hogarth. 05/27/2025: A New Stephen King Novel Asks, Does the World Have Heroes Anymore? Review of NEVER FLINCH / Stephen King.
Violet Kupersmith. 05/27/2025: Kidnapped by Corsican Rebels, a Rich Girl Joins the Revolution. Review of: THE BOMBSHELL / Darrow Farr.
Jennifer Szalai. 05/28/2025: A Splendid New Biography of Gauguin Separates the Man From the Myth. Review of: WILD THING: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
Cree LeFavour. 05/30/2025: A Memoir of Family Dysfunction Awash in Liquor and Leafy Greens. Review of: THE SPINACH KING: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty / John Seabrook.
Norimitsu Onishi. 05/30/2025: The U.S.-Canada Border Runs Through This Library. That’s Now a Problem.
Alexandra Alter. 05/31/2025: The Devastating Book Erica Jong Always Knew Her Daughter Would Write. How to Lose Your Mother: a daughter's memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Chelsea Leu. 05/31/2025: A Memoir of Divorce and Xenophobia, Narrated by a Clam. Review of the novel CLAM DOWN: A Metamorphosis / Anelise Chen.
71featherbear
The Critic (UK) May 2025
Bijan Omrani. 05/02/2025: Signposts of the sacred and mundane. Review of: Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy / Cosima Clara Gillhammer.
David Cowan. 05/04/2025: Is the future bright? Review of: How to Think about AI: A Guide for the Perplexed / Richard Susskind.
Jeremy Black. 05/04/2025: Murders for May: A look at some murderously good talent and some old re-releases.
David James. 05/08/2025: A fine bromance: We have long since lost any real perspective on The Beatles. Review of: John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Iain MacGregor. 05/11/2025: The Nazi hunter. Review of: The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice / Jack Fairweather.
John Self. 05/12/2025: A writer we should all read. Review of: The Rest of Our Lives / Ben Markovits -- We Pretty Pieces of Flesh / Colwill Brown -- The Possession / Annie Ernaux (translated by Anna Moschovakis).
Matthew Reisz. 05/13/2025: Age of influencers: Central European artists illuminated the national landscape in 1930s Britain. Review of: The Alienation Effect: How Central European Émigrés Transformed the British Twentieth Century / Owen Hatherley.
The Secret Author. 05/14/2025: All the industry crises in one place. "It’s not often that a specialist trade magazine manages to exemplify the various crises which the industry it represents is undergoing in a single issue. So hats off to the Bookseller of 21 February 2025 for, albeit unwittingly, exposing practically everything that is currently going wrong in the British book trade."
Armand D'Angour. 05/22/2025: Reflections on the rubble of the ancients. Review of: The Ruins of Rome: A Cultural History / Roland Mayer.
Jeremy Black (reviewing his own book?). 05/24/2025: The lines that moved the world. Review of: A History of Railways in 100 Maps / Jeremy Black.
Ben Sixsmith. 05/29/2025: An unconvincing case for Israel. Review of: On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West / Douglas Murray.
Bijan Omrani. 05/02/2025: Signposts of the sacred and mundane. Review of: Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy / Cosima Clara Gillhammer.
David Cowan. 05/04/2025: Is the future bright? Review of: How to Think about AI: A Guide for the Perplexed / Richard Susskind.
Jeremy Black. 05/04/2025: Murders for May: A look at some murderously good talent and some old re-releases.
David James. 05/08/2025: A fine bromance: We have long since lost any real perspective on The Beatles. Review of: John & Paul: A Love Story in Songs / Ian Leslie.
Iain MacGregor. 05/11/2025: The Nazi hunter. Review of: The Prosecutor: One Man’s Battle to Bring Nazis to Justice / Jack Fairweather.
John Self. 05/12/2025: A writer we should all read. Review of: The Rest of Our Lives / Ben Markovits -- We Pretty Pieces of Flesh / Colwill Brown -- The Possession / Annie Ernaux (translated by Anna Moschovakis).
Matthew Reisz. 05/13/2025: Age of influencers: Central European artists illuminated the national landscape in 1930s Britain. Review of: The Alienation Effect: How Central European Émigrés Transformed the British Twentieth Century / Owen Hatherley.
The Secret Author. 05/14/2025: All the industry crises in one place. "It’s not often that a specialist trade magazine manages to exemplify the various crises which the industry it represents is undergoing in a single issue. So hats off to the Bookseller of 21 February 2025 for, albeit unwittingly, exposing practically everything that is currently going wrong in the British book trade."
Armand D'Angour. 05/22/2025: Reflections on the rubble of the ancients. Review of: The Ruins of Rome: A Cultural History / Roland Mayer.
Jeremy Black (reviewing his own book?). 05/24/2025: The lines that moved the world. Review of: A History of Railways in 100 Maps / Jeremy Black.
Ben Sixsmith. 05/29/2025: An unconvincing case for Israel. Review of: On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel, Hamas and the Future of the West / Douglas Murray.
72featherbear
Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, 1941-2025
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 04/27/2025: Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, 83, Dies; African Scholar Challenged the West. "He deconstructed what he called “the colonial library”: the accounts of Africa by Europeans whose aim, he said, was to further colonialism."
"“Europeans have been in contact with Africa since the end of the 15th century,” Mr. Mudimbe explained to the African and African American literary periodical Callaloo in 1991. “They have perceived Africa and Africans and written about them.”
“We can now read these stories, these descriptions,” he continued, “and say, well, these are constructs which were made at a given moment, and today we can make others. So Europeans have invented Africa, but, today, Africans are inventing their own Africa.”
"The concept of the “colonial library” became Mr. Mudimbe’s trademark. It has colored appreciations of the vast body of European literature on Africa since he first touched on it. These books were the foundations of “colonial reason,” Mr. Mudimbe wrote in the “Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy,” and were critical in “erasing African differences and their impulses.”
Best known for: The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (African Systems of Thought) & The Idea of Africa (African Systems of Thought) / (as V.Y. Mudimbe).
Mudimbe's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/mudimbevy
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 04/27/2025: Valentin-Yves Mudimbe, 83, Dies; African Scholar Challenged the West. "He deconstructed what he called “the colonial library”: the accounts of Africa by Europeans whose aim, he said, was to further colonialism."
"“Europeans have been in contact with Africa since the end of the 15th century,” Mr. Mudimbe explained to the African and African American literary periodical Callaloo in 1991. “They have perceived Africa and Africans and written about them.”
“We can now read these stories, these descriptions,” he continued, “and say, well, these are constructs which were made at a given moment, and today we can make others. So Europeans have invented Africa, but, today, Africans are inventing their own Africa.”
"The concept of the “colonial library” became Mr. Mudimbe’s trademark. It has colored appreciations of the vast body of European literature on Africa since he first touched on it. These books were the foundations of “colonial reason,” Mr. Mudimbe wrote in the “Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy,” and were critical in “erasing African differences and their impulses.”
Best known for: The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (African Systems of Thought) & The Idea of Africa (African Systems of Thought) / (as V.Y. Mudimbe).
Mudimbe's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/mudimbevy
73featherbear
David Horowitz, 1939-2025
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 04/30/2025: David Horowitz, Leftist Turned Trump Defender, Is Dead at 86. "Once a Marxist, he came to embrace hard-right positions, including the falsehood that Mr. Trump won in 2020, and to mentor Stephen Miller, later the Trump adviser."
"... a radical leftist of the 1960s who did a political about-face to become an outspoken conservative author and activist, writing that Barack Obama had “betrayed” America, and an ardent cheerleader for Donald J. Trump ... "
"Once a self-described Marxist, Mr. Horowitz executed a dizzying transit from the extreme left to the extreme right. He argued that the Black Lives Matter movement had fueled racial hatred; he opposed Palestinian rights; he denounced the news media and universities as tools of the left; and he falsely claimed that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, which Mr. Horowitz called “the greatest political crime” in American history.
"A prolific author since his early 20s, Mr. Horowitz published several pro-Trump books, including “Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America” (2017) and “The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement Is Destroying America” (2021). The enemies he accused of totalitarian impulses were the mainstream Democrats Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, and Kamala Harris, then the vice president.
"Before his turn to the far right, Mr. Horowitz was a mainstream conservative who in 1984 cast his first Republican ballot, to re-elect President Ronald Reagan.
"He and a fellow convert, Peter Collier, writing in The Washington Post Magazine in 1985, described their transformation as a response in part to what they considered the left’s naïve views of communist movements, and in part to Reagan’s blunt assessment of the Soviet Union as an enemy of freedom.
"Identified in the 1980s as a neoconservative, Mr. Horowitz began moving farther right with the emergence of culture wars. He co-founded Heterodoxy magazine in 1992 to critique political correctness on American campuses. In 1988, he and Mr. Collier founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which changed its name in 2006 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
"The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2014 called Mr. Horowitz “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement.”
The obit concentrates on his political swerves, but back in the day he co-wrote a number of "dynasty" collective bios of interest, w/Peter Collier: The Kennedys: An American Drama -- The Roosevelts: An American Saga -- The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty -- The Fords: An American Epic. Some of his later, less family oriented, titles do seem to indicate a change of perspective reminiscent of Twitter "conspiracy" comments: DARK AGENDA: The War to Destroy Christian America -- The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party -- The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
The David Horowitz LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/horowitzdavid-1
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 04/30/2025: David Horowitz, Leftist Turned Trump Defender, Is Dead at 86. "Once a Marxist, he came to embrace hard-right positions, including the falsehood that Mr. Trump won in 2020, and to mentor Stephen Miller, later the Trump adviser."
"... a radical leftist of the 1960s who did a political about-face to become an outspoken conservative author and activist, writing that Barack Obama had “betrayed” America, and an ardent cheerleader for Donald J. Trump ... "
"Once a self-described Marxist, Mr. Horowitz executed a dizzying transit from the extreme left to the extreme right. He argued that the Black Lives Matter movement had fueled racial hatred; he opposed Palestinian rights; he denounced the news media and universities as tools of the left; and he falsely claimed that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, which Mr. Horowitz called “the greatest political crime” in American history.
"A prolific author since his early 20s, Mr. Horowitz published several pro-Trump books, including “Big Agenda: President Trump’s Plan to Save America” (2017) and “The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement Is Destroying America” (2021). The enemies he accused of totalitarian impulses were the mainstream Democrats Nancy Pelosi, then the House speaker, and Kamala Harris, then the vice president.
"Before his turn to the far right, Mr. Horowitz was a mainstream conservative who in 1984 cast his first Republican ballot, to re-elect President Ronald Reagan.
"He and a fellow convert, Peter Collier, writing in The Washington Post Magazine in 1985, described their transformation as a response in part to what they considered the left’s naïve views of communist movements, and in part to Reagan’s blunt assessment of the Soviet Union as an enemy of freedom.
"Identified in the 1980s as a neoconservative, Mr. Horowitz began moving farther right with the emergence of culture wars. He co-founded Heterodoxy magazine in 1992 to critique political correctness on American campuses. In 1988, he and Mr. Collier founded the Center for the Study of Popular Culture, which changed its name in 2006 to the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
"The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2014 called Mr. Horowitz “the godfather of the modern anti-Muslim movement.”
The obit concentrates on his political swerves, but back in the day he co-wrote a number of "dynasty" collective bios of interest, w/Peter Collier: The Kennedys: An American Drama -- The Roosevelts: An American Saga -- The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty -- The Fords: An American Epic. Some of his later, less family oriented, titles do seem to indicate a change of perspective reminiscent of Twitter "conspiracy" comments: DARK AGENDA: The War to Destroy Christian America -- The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party -- The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America.
The David Horowitz LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/horowitzdavid-1
74featherbear
Guardian May 2025
Ella Creamer. 05/02/2025: Do we really need more male novelists? "There may not be obvious successors to the likes of Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie among today’s hotshot young writers. But is a new publisher dedicated to ‘overlooked’ male voices necessary?"
Lloyd Green. 05/04/2025: Zbig: a bracing life of Carter’s abrasive national security adviser. Review of: Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet / Edward Luce.
Sam Leith. 05/04/2025: Love Groundhog Day and Russian Doll? These are the novels for you: High-concept fiction is having a moment. Funny, inventive and crackling with big ideas, these ambitious stories will have you instantly hooked.
John Mullan. 05/06/2025: Book of the day: the story of America’s first literary celebrity, from the author of Hamilton. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Clare Clark. 05/07/2025: The verdict on spring’s hottest debut: in this strikingly assured sliding doors tale, three alternate narratives unfold, showing how the choice of a name influences a life. Review of The Names: a novel / Florence Knapp.
Steven Poole. 05/07/2025: Gripping true stories of spies who lived deep undercover: An eye-opening account of the old Soviet tactic of embedding secret agents where you’d least expect them. Review of: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Adele Dumont. 05/08/2025: Absorbing memoir brings Iceland to life. Review of: Always Home, Always Homesick / Hannah Kent.
Rosalind Adams. 05/09/2025: Authors speak out against failed US book festival: ‘shattered badges and silence.’ "Grace Marsceau promised to pack A Million Lives event. Authors arrived to empty rooms, unpaid bills and no decor." Romantasy book festival; sign of decline?
Lauren Alatani. 05/10/2025: Pentagon orders military to pull books related to DEI and ‘gender ideology.’ "Another memo told military academies to ignore ‘race, ethnicity or sex’ in admissions, but athleticism can be considered."
Shahidha Bari. 05/12/2025: A riotous roadtrip. Review of: Slags / Emma Jane Unsworth (Borough).
Martin Pengelly. 05/15/2025: The Afterlife of Malcolm X: how the civil rights icon influenced America. Review of: The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America / Mark Whitaker.
Yagnishing Dawoor. 05/15/2025: A fable about self-mythology: This gloriously absurd Prague-set tale, in which one woman is split into seven selves, is a wild ride. Review of: A New New Me: A Novel / Helen Oyeyemi.
José Olivares. 05/15/2025: Faith leaders denounce US book burning as hate-fuelled intimidation. "Interfaith group responds after books on Black, Jewish and LGBTQ+ history were burned and shared in racist video."
Michael Berry. 05/16/2025: AI Nightmares: Rise of the Dead Souls. "... warning signs of the creep of AI into education and translation work."
Xan Brooks. 05/19/2025: A dazzling fable of migration. Review of: The Book of Records: A Novel / Madeleine Thein.
Charlie Gilmour. 05/20/2025: Tracing the late journalist’s footprints. Review of: How to Save the Amazon: A journalist’s fatal quest for answers / Dom Phillips (Ithaka). ("A team of writers complete the vital book that Guardian reporter Dom Phillips was working on at the time of his murder.")
Lucy Knight. 05/20/2025: ‘Radical translation’ of Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq wins International Booker prize."Translator Deepa Bhasthi’s pick of 12 of Mushtaq’s ‘life-affirming’ tales about women’s lives in southern India becomes the first short story collection to win the £50,000 award. ... Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, has won this year’s International Booker prize for translated fiction.
Pratinav Anil. 05/21/2025: Brilliant primer on leftwing economics. Review of: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Farrah Jarral. 05/22/2025: An activist’s antidote to despair. Review of: No Straight Road Takes You There / Rebecca Solnit.
Suzanne Joinson. 05/22/2025: A shattering account of losing two sons. Review of: Things in Nature Merely Grow / Yiyun Li.
Seren Heyman-Griffiths. 05/22/2025: Florence Nightingale inspires a luminous historical novel. Review of: Nightingale / Laura Elvery (University of Queensland Press, US pub date per Amazon is July 29).
Andrew Hunter Murray. 05/23/2025: Andrew Hunter Murray: ‘Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I find more jokes.’ "The author and podcaster on taking inspiration from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, welling up to Charles Dickens, and the enduring appeal of Jane Austen."
Tim Byrne. 05/23/2025: Michelle de Kretser wins Stella prize for book that ‘expands our notions of what a novel can be.’ For Theory & Practice: A Novel / Michelle de Kretser, "a shortlist that included Amy McQuire’s essay collection Black Witness, Melanie Cheng’s novel The Burrow and Samah Sabawi’s family memoir Cactus Pear For My Beloved."
John Self. 05/23/2025: ‘My legal work sows the seeds of my stories’: International Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq. Interview with the author of Heart Lamp: selected stories.
Stuart Jeffries. 05/26/2025: Inside the world of the ultrarich. Review of: The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Kathryn Hughes. 05/26/2025: How a literary legend was made. Review of: Gertrude Stein: an Afterlife / Francesca Wade.
Sukhdev Sandhu. 05/29/2025: Timothy Leary’s right hand woman. Review of: The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary / Susannah Cahalan.
John Self. 05/30/2025: The best recent translated fiction – review roundup. "The Propagandist by Cécile Desprairies; Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez; Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski; Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst (Jonathan Cape)."
Rachel Seifert. 05/30/2025: A thought-provoking novel about the power of the past. Review of: Ghost Wedding / David Park.
Jude Cook et al. 05/31/2025: ‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists? "As a small press launches dedicated to new male fiction, authors including Anne Enright and Nikesh Shukla ask if men are really being pushed out of publishing."
Ella Creamer. 05/02/2025: Do we really need more male novelists? "There may not be obvious successors to the likes of Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie among today’s hotshot young writers. But is a new publisher dedicated to ‘overlooked’ male voices necessary?"
Lloyd Green. 05/04/2025: Zbig: a bracing life of Carter’s abrasive national security adviser. Review of: Zbig: The Life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America's Great Power Prophet / Edward Luce.
Sam Leith. 05/04/2025: Love Groundhog Day and Russian Doll? These are the novels for you: High-concept fiction is having a moment. Funny, inventive and crackling with big ideas, these ambitious stories will have you instantly hooked.
John Mullan. 05/06/2025: Book of the day: the story of America’s first literary celebrity, from the author of Hamilton. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Clare Clark. 05/07/2025: The verdict on spring’s hottest debut: in this strikingly assured sliding doors tale, three alternate narratives unfold, showing how the choice of a name influences a life. Review of The Names: a novel / Florence Knapp.
Steven Poole. 05/07/2025: Gripping true stories of spies who lived deep undercover: An eye-opening account of the old Soviet tactic of embedding secret agents where you’d least expect them. Review of: The Illegals: Russia’s Most Audacious Spies and the Plot to Infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Adele Dumont. 05/08/2025: Absorbing memoir brings Iceland to life. Review of: Always Home, Always Homesick / Hannah Kent.
Rosalind Adams. 05/09/2025: Authors speak out against failed US book festival: ‘shattered badges and silence.’ "Grace Marsceau promised to pack A Million Lives event. Authors arrived to empty rooms, unpaid bills and no decor." Romantasy book festival; sign of decline?
Lauren Alatani. 05/10/2025: Pentagon orders military to pull books related to DEI and ‘gender ideology.’ "Another memo told military academies to ignore ‘race, ethnicity or sex’ in admissions, but athleticism can be considered."
Shahidha Bari. 05/12/2025: A riotous roadtrip. Review of: Slags / Emma Jane Unsworth (Borough).
Martin Pengelly. 05/15/2025: The Afterlife of Malcolm X: how the civil rights icon influenced America. Review of: The Afterlife of Malcolm X: An Outcast Turned Icon's Enduring Impact on America / Mark Whitaker.
Yagnishing Dawoor. 05/15/2025: A fable about self-mythology: This gloriously absurd Prague-set tale, in which one woman is split into seven selves, is a wild ride. Review of: A New New Me: A Novel / Helen Oyeyemi.
José Olivares. 05/15/2025: Faith leaders denounce US book burning as hate-fuelled intimidation. "Interfaith group responds after books on Black, Jewish and LGBTQ+ history were burned and shared in racist video."
Michael Berry. 05/16/2025: AI Nightmares: Rise of the Dead Souls. "... warning signs of the creep of AI into education and translation work."
Xan Brooks. 05/19/2025: A dazzling fable of migration. Review of: The Book of Records: A Novel / Madeleine Thein.
Charlie Gilmour. 05/20/2025: Tracing the late journalist’s footprints. Review of: How to Save the Amazon: A journalist’s fatal quest for answers / Dom Phillips (Ithaka). ("A team of writers complete the vital book that Guardian reporter Dom Phillips was working on at the time of his murder.")
Lucy Knight. 05/20/2025: ‘Radical translation’ of Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq wins International Booker prize."Translator Deepa Bhasthi’s pick of 12 of Mushtaq’s ‘life-affirming’ tales about women’s lives in southern India becomes the first short story collection to win the £50,000 award. ... Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, has won this year’s International Booker prize for translated fiction.
Pratinav Anil. 05/21/2025: Brilliant primer on leftwing economics. Review of: Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Farrah Jarral. 05/22/2025: An activist’s antidote to despair. Review of: No Straight Road Takes You There / Rebecca Solnit.
Suzanne Joinson. 05/22/2025: A shattering account of losing two sons. Review of: Things in Nature Merely Grow / Yiyun Li.
Seren Heyman-Griffiths. 05/22/2025: Florence Nightingale inspires a luminous historical novel. Review of: Nightingale / Laura Elvery (University of Queensland Press, US pub date per Amazon is July 29).
Andrew Hunter Murray. 05/23/2025: Andrew Hunter Murray: ‘Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I find more jokes.’ "The author and podcaster on taking inspiration from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, welling up to Charles Dickens, and the enduring appeal of Jane Austen."
Tim Byrne. 05/23/2025: Michelle de Kretser wins Stella prize for book that ‘expands our notions of what a novel can be.’ For Theory & Practice: A Novel / Michelle de Kretser, "a shortlist that included Amy McQuire’s essay collection Black Witness, Melanie Cheng’s novel The Burrow and Samah Sabawi’s family memoir Cactus Pear For My Beloved."
John Self. 05/23/2025: ‘My legal work sows the seeds of my stories’: International Booker prize winner Banu Mushtaq. Interview with the author of Heart Lamp: selected stories.
Stuart Jeffries. 05/26/2025: Inside the world of the ultrarich. Review of: The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Kathryn Hughes. 05/26/2025: How a literary legend was made. Review of: Gertrude Stein: an Afterlife / Francesca Wade.
Sukhdev Sandhu. 05/29/2025: Timothy Leary’s right hand woman. Review of: The Acid Queen: The Psychedelic Life and Counterculture Rebellion of Rosemary Woodruff Leary / Susannah Cahalan.
John Self. 05/30/2025: The best recent translated fiction – review roundup. "The Propagandist by Cécile Desprairies; Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez; Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski; Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst (Jonathan Cape)."
Rachel Seifert. 05/30/2025: A thought-provoking novel about the power of the past. Review of: Ghost Wedding / David Park.
Jude Cook et al. 05/31/2025: ‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists? "As a small press launches dedicated to new male fiction, authors including Anne Enright and Nikesh Shukla ask if men are really being pushed out of publishing."
75featherbear
May 4 updates:
The Critic (UK) 05/04: AI & the future >71 featherbear:
Guardian 05/04 Zbigniew Brzezinski bio >74 featherbear:
NYT May 2: Black bookstores; May 3: Mathias Enard novel; Ocean Vuong interview; May 4: Tequila; Paget sisters bio; culture wars & a library in Alabama >70 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) 05/04: AI & the future >71 featherbear:
Guardian 05/04 Zbigniew Brzezinski bio >74 featherbear:
NYT May 2: Black bookstores; May 3: Mathias Enard novel; Ocean Vuong interview; May 4: Tequila; Paget sisters bio; culture wars & a library in Alabama >70 featherbear:
76featherbear
May 6 updates
Guardian May 6 Ron Chernow Mark Twain bio >74 featherbear:
LARB May 5: Earth May 6: GW Pabst novel (cp Atlantic review in 77) >69 featherbear:
NYT May 5 Pulitzer Prize winners & finalists unlocked >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 2: forever chemicals book May 5: novels by Isabel Allende & Florence Knapp >66 featherbear:
Guardian May 6 Ron Chernow Mark Twain bio >74 featherbear:
LARB May 5: Earth May 6: GW Pabst novel (cp Atlantic review in 77) >69 featherbear:
NYT May 5 Pulitzer Prize winners & finalists unlocked >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 2: forever chemicals book May 5: novels by Isabel Allende & Florence Knapp >66 featherbear:
77featherbear
Atlantic May 2025
Vivian Gornick. 05/03/2025: The Writer Who Understood Aloneness. Review of: The Uncollected Stories Of Mavis Gallant (New York Review Books).
Gal Beckerman. 05/06/2025: Why Do Collaborators Do It? Review of: The Director: A Novel / Daniel Kehlmann; Ross Benjamin translator.
Jonathan Chait. 05/07/2025: The Godfather of the Woke Right. Regarding Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025 / Pat Buchanan.
Amy Weiss Meyer. 05/08/2025: We’re All Living in a Carl Hiaasen Novel.
Sophia Stewart. 05/09/2025: What to Read to Understand Your Mom. Mother's Day book recommendations: Blue Light Hours / Bruno Dantas Lobato -- Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them / Edan Lepucki -- Mom & Me & Mom / Maya Angelou -- Tom Lake / Ann Patchett -- Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel / Bernardine Evaristo -- The Hero of This Book: A Novel / Elizabeth McCracken -- Loved and Missed / Susie Boyt.
Graeme Wood. 05/09/2025: The Not-at-All-Funny Life of Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Marion Renault. 05/13/205: A Different Way to Think About Medicine’s Most Stubborn Enigma. Review of: Valley Of Forgetting - Alzheimer's Families And The Search For A Cure / Jennie Erin Smith.
05/15/2025: The Summer Reading Guide
Shirley Li. 05/15/2025: What Should You Let Your Kids Read?
Hanna Rosin. 05/19/2025: What Is Alison Bechdel’s Secret? Review of: Spent: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel.
Sheila McClear. 05/29/2025: The Perilous Spread of the Wellness Craze. Review of: How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time / Amy Larocca.
Susan Tallman. 05/30/2025: How to Look at Paul Gauguin. Review of: Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
Vivian Gornick. 05/03/2025: The Writer Who Understood Aloneness. Review of: The Uncollected Stories Of Mavis Gallant (New York Review Books).
Gal Beckerman. 05/06/2025: Why Do Collaborators Do It? Review of: The Director: A Novel / Daniel Kehlmann; Ross Benjamin translator.
Jonathan Chait. 05/07/2025: The Godfather of the Woke Right. Regarding Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025 / Pat Buchanan.
Amy Weiss Meyer. 05/08/2025: We’re All Living in a Carl Hiaasen Novel.
Sophia Stewart. 05/09/2025: What to Read to Understand Your Mom. Mother's Day book recommendations: Blue Light Hours / Bruno Dantas Lobato -- Mothers Before: Stories and Portraits of Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them / Edan Lepucki -- Mom & Me & Mom / Maya Angelou -- Tom Lake / Ann Patchett -- Girl, Woman, Other: A Novel / Bernardine Evaristo -- The Hero of This Book: A Novel / Elizabeth McCracken -- Loved and Missed / Susie Boyt.
Graeme Wood. 05/09/2025: The Not-at-All-Funny Life of Mark Twain. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Marion Renault. 05/13/205: A Different Way to Think About Medicine’s Most Stubborn Enigma. Review of: Valley Of Forgetting - Alzheimer's Families And The Search For A Cure / Jennie Erin Smith.
05/15/2025: The Summer Reading Guide
Shirley Li. 05/15/2025: What Should You Let Your Kids Read?
Hanna Rosin. 05/19/2025: What Is Alison Bechdel’s Secret? Review of: Spent: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel.
Sheila McClear. 05/29/2025: The Perilous Spread of the Wellness Craze. Review of: How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self-Care Epidemic, One Dubious Cure at a Time / Amy Larocca.
Susan Tallman. 05/30/2025: How to Look at Paul Gauguin. Review of: Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
78featherbear
LitHub May 2025
Kazuo Ishiguro. 05/05/2025: Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later: On the Decades-Long Creative Process Behind His Most Successful Novel. Regarding Never Let Me Go / Kazuo Ishiguro.
Natalie Jenner. 05/06/2025: The Power of Persuasion: Why Lawyers Love Jane Austen.
Natasha Lester. 05/08/2025: From the French Resistance to the Horrors of Hiroshima: Eight Globe-Spanning Books on World War II. "Natasha Lester Recommends Ariel Lawhon, Emma Pei Yin, Anne Sebba, and More."
James Folta. 05/13/2025: Want to reduce crime? Science says: build more libraries.
Mia Manzulli. 05/14/2025: What a Plunge! Teaching Mrs. Dalloway to High Schoolers in 2025. "Mia Manzulli Considers Clarissa in the Age of AI and Fractured Attention."
Marisa Charpentier. 05/14/2025: Across the Clarissa-Verse: On 100 Years of Mrs. Dalloway.
Ed Simon. 05/16/2025: L. Frank Baum’s Literary Vision of an American Century: The Wizard of Oz at 125 Years. "Ed Simon on Grifters, the Chicago World Fair, and Oz as Symbol of a Modern USA."
Hannah Benson. 05/16/2025: Jane Austen’s Legacy Lives on in Rom-Coms.
Hari Kunzru. 05/22/2025: Hari Kunzru Reflects on Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism Thirty Years After Publication. Regarding Culture and Imperialism / Edward Said.
Martha Park. 05/23/2025: Nonfiction Against the End of the World: An Apocalypse Reading List. The author of World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After (Cold Mountain Fund Series) recommends: Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back / Mark O’Connell -- Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse” / Emily Raboteau -- The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War / Jeff Sharlet -- The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins / Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing -- Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World / Lisa Wells.
Maria Hummel. 05/28/2025: How the Brothers Grimm Became Martyrs to Academic Freedom.
Kazuo Ishiguro. 05/05/2025: Kazuo Ishiguro Reflects on Never Let Me Go, 20 Years Later: On the Decades-Long Creative Process Behind His Most Successful Novel. Regarding Never Let Me Go / Kazuo Ishiguro.
Natalie Jenner. 05/06/2025: The Power of Persuasion: Why Lawyers Love Jane Austen.
Natasha Lester. 05/08/2025: From the French Resistance to the Horrors of Hiroshima: Eight Globe-Spanning Books on World War II. "Natasha Lester Recommends Ariel Lawhon, Emma Pei Yin, Anne Sebba, and More."
James Folta. 05/13/2025: Want to reduce crime? Science says: build more libraries.
Mia Manzulli. 05/14/2025: What a Plunge! Teaching Mrs. Dalloway to High Schoolers in 2025. "Mia Manzulli Considers Clarissa in the Age of AI and Fractured Attention."
Marisa Charpentier. 05/14/2025: Across the Clarissa-Verse: On 100 Years of Mrs. Dalloway.
Ed Simon. 05/16/2025: L. Frank Baum’s Literary Vision of an American Century: The Wizard of Oz at 125 Years. "Ed Simon on Grifters, the Chicago World Fair, and Oz as Symbol of a Modern USA."
Hannah Benson. 05/16/2025: Jane Austen’s Legacy Lives on in Rom-Coms.
Hari Kunzru. 05/22/2025: Hari Kunzru Reflects on Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism Thirty Years After Publication. Regarding Culture and Imperialism / Edward Said.
Martha Park. 05/23/2025: Nonfiction Against the End of the World: An Apocalypse Reading List. The author of World Without End: Essays on Apocalypse and After (Cold Mountain Fund Series) recommends: Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back / Mark O’Connell -- Lessons for Survival: Mothering Against “The Apocalypse” / Emily Raboteau -- The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War / Jeff Sharlet -- The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins / Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing -- Believers: Making a Life at the End of the World / Lisa Wells.
Maria Hummel. 05/28/2025: How the Brothers Grimm Became Martyrs to Academic Freedom.
79featherbear
TLS May 9, 2025|No. 6371
Featured
Felipe Fernández-Armesto. Putting the blame on Spain: Why Anglo-American colonialism has no claim to moral superiority. Review of: AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A new history of the new world / Greg Grandin.
Nat Segnit. Compassion burnout: Edward St Aubyn’s family drama continued. Review of: PARALLEL LINES / Edward St Aubyn.
Nicola Shulman. Behind the velvet rope: The former editor of Vanity Fair looks back on an era of excess. Review of: WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD: An editor’s adventures during the last golden age of magazines / Graydon Carter.
James Hall. Night visions: Fantastic gloomth: Victor Hugo the artist. Review of the exhibition & catalog ASTONISHING THINGS: The drawings of Victor Hugo / Gérard Audinet et al, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until June 29.
Mary Beard (her blog entry from the TLS current issue page). The Don Pacifico Affair.
Literature
Tim Parks. Women and men: Elena Ferrante and identity. (Essay)
Joanne Brueton. National amnesia: A voiceless protagonist in a chorus of female resistance. Review of: HOURIS / Kamel Daoud.
Maren Meinhardt. Close but not too close: Writing through unspoken trauma. Review of: WE WOULD HAVE TOLD EACH OTHER EVERYTHING / Judith Hermann; translated by Katy Derbyshire (Granta).
Nicki Hitchcott. Family tree: What it means to be a survivor. Review of: JACARANDA / Gaël Faye (Grasset).
Anna Aslanyan. Croaking loudly: A former minister and his father share a voice. Review of: THE FROG IN THE THROAT / Markus Werner; translated by Michael Hofmann.
In Brief Review of: TO SMITHEREENS / Rosalyn Drexler.
In Brief Review of: LAPWING / Hannah Copley.
M.C. NB Column. The sweet dove spied: Barbara Pym’s war, Barbara Everett’s readings, Western dispatches in wartime, Correspondence.
Arts
Julia Kindt. Looking death in the face: How the Athenians used art and philosophy to confront mortality. Review of: FIGURING DEATH IN CLASSICAL ATHENS: Visual and literary explorations / Emily Clifford (Oxford University Press).
Keith Miller. Words changed into things: The metamorphic, controversial art of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Review of the exhibition IAN HAMILTON FINLAY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Modern Two, Edinburgh, until May 26.
Rod Mengham. Family, friends and public figures: Studies in scrutiny and statehood from two major artists. Review of the exhibitions EDVARD MUNCH PORTRAITS, National Portrait Gallery, London, until June -- STANISŁAW WYSPIAŃSKI: PORTRAITS, National Portrait Gallery, London, until July 13.
Fiona Gruber. Sketching a landscape: Eight years in the evolution of an Australian artist. Review of: THE DIARIES OF FRED WILLIAMS, 1963–1970 / Edited by Patrick McCaughey, with John Timlin.
Blood Sports
Diana Leca. Blood, bruises and loss: Boxing’s decline from glory days and its continuing fascination. Review of: THE LAST BELL: Life, death and boxing / Donald McRae -- SOFT TISSUE DAMAGE / Anna Whitwham (Rough Trade).
Religious Philosophy
Angela Knobel. Philosopher of belonging: A medieval thinker for modern times. Review of: WHY AQUINAS MATTERS NOW / Oliver Keenan.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Jessica Clarke. Courting misrule: Cicero trumphed as a Roman advocate just as the legal system descended into violence. Review of: LAWLESS REPUBLIC: The rise of Cicero and the decline of Rome / Josiah Osgood.
Rebecca Fraser. Finding the secret sauce: Manhattan’s peaceful transition from Dutch to English rule. Review of: TAKING MANHATTAN: The extraordinary events that created New York and shaped America / Russell Shorto.
Robert Tombs. South Sea trouble: Where Cambridge and the Church of England get it wrong on reparations. (Essay)
Lucy Lethbridge. Quaffing, nibbling, blessing: Tales of picnics, privilege and royal escapades. Review of: LADY GLENCONNER’S PICNIC PAPERS: And other feasts with friends / Anne Glenconner.
Jan Machielsen. Making monsters: Primeval fears still fire the human imagination. Review of: HUMANS: A monstrous history / Surekha Davies.
Surekha Davies. Beast and man: Finding ways to denigrate ‘the human other.’ Review of: ENCHANTED CREATURES: Our monsters and their meanings / Natalie Lawrence.
Stephen Glover. Spies in the newsroom: The murder of a journalist entangled with intelligence agencies. Review of: MURDER IN CAIRO: Solving a Cold War spy mystery / Peter Gillman and Emanuele Midolo (Biteback).
Kojo Karam. Competition is for losers: In the shadow economy, hidden wealth escapes the rules. Review of: THE HIDDEN GLOBE: How wealth hacks the world / Atossa Araxia Abrahamian -- OFFSHORE: Stealth wealth and the new colonialism / Brooke Harrington.
In Brief Review of: ZERO SUM: The arc of international business in Russia / Charles Hecker.
In Brief Review of: FREE: My search for meaning / Amanda Knox.
In Brief Review of: A DEAD CAT ON YOUR TABLE: A new guide to culture wars and how not to lose them / Peter York; illustrated by Martin Rowson (Byline).
In Brief Review of: THE MERMAID CHRONICLES: A midlife mer-moir / Megan Dunn.
Featured
Felipe Fernández-Armesto. Putting the blame on Spain: Why Anglo-American colonialism has no claim to moral superiority. Review of: AMERICA, AMÉRICA: A new history of the new world / Greg Grandin.
Nat Segnit. Compassion burnout: Edward St Aubyn’s family drama continued. Review of: PARALLEL LINES / Edward St Aubyn.
Nicola Shulman. Behind the velvet rope: The former editor of Vanity Fair looks back on an era of excess. Review of: WHEN THE GOING WAS GOOD: An editor’s adventures during the last golden age of magazines / Graydon Carter.
James Hall. Night visions: Fantastic gloomth: Victor Hugo the artist. Review of the exhibition & catalog ASTONISHING THINGS: The drawings of Victor Hugo / Gérard Audinet et al, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until June 29.
Mary Beard (her blog entry from the TLS current issue page). The Don Pacifico Affair.
Literature
Tim Parks. Women and men: Elena Ferrante and identity. (Essay)
Joanne Brueton. National amnesia: A voiceless protagonist in a chorus of female resistance. Review of: HOURIS / Kamel Daoud.
Maren Meinhardt. Close but not too close: Writing through unspoken trauma. Review of: WE WOULD HAVE TOLD EACH OTHER EVERYTHING / Judith Hermann; translated by Katy Derbyshire (Granta).
Nicki Hitchcott. Family tree: What it means to be a survivor. Review of: JACARANDA / Gaël Faye (Grasset).
Anna Aslanyan. Croaking loudly: A former minister and his father share a voice. Review of: THE FROG IN THE THROAT / Markus Werner; translated by Michael Hofmann.
In Brief Review of: TO SMITHEREENS / Rosalyn Drexler.
In Brief Review of: LAPWING / Hannah Copley.
M.C. NB Column. The sweet dove spied: Barbara Pym’s war, Barbara Everett’s readings, Western dispatches in wartime, Correspondence.
Arts
Julia Kindt. Looking death in the face: How the Athenians used art and philosophy to confront mortality. Review of: FIGURING DEATH IN CLASSICAL ATHENS: Visual and literary explorations / Emily Clifford (Oxford University Press).
Keith Miller. Words changed into things: The metamorphic, controversial art of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Review of the exhibition IAN HAMILTON FINLAY, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Modern Two, Edinburgh, until May 26.
Rod Mengham. Family, friends and public figures: Studies in scrutiny and statehood from two major artists. Review of the exhibitions EDVARD MUNCH PORTRAITS, National Portrait Gallery, London, until June -- STANISŁAW WYSPIAŃSKI: PORTRAITS, National Portrait Gallery, London, until July 13.
Fiona Gruber. Sketching a landscape: Eight years in the evolution of an Australian artist. Review of: THE DIARIES OF FRED WILLIAMS, 1963–1970 / Edited by Patrick McCaughey, with John Timlin.
Blood Sports
Diana Leca. Blood, bruises and loss: Boxing’s decline from glory days and its continuing fascination. Review of: THE LAST BELL: Life, death and boxing / Donald McRae -- SOFT TISSUE DAMAGE / Anna Whitwham (Rough Trade).
Religious Philosophy
Angela Knobel. Philosopher of belonging: A medieval thinker for modern times. Review of: WHY AQUINAS MATTERS NOW / Oliver Keenan.
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Jessica Clarke. Courting misrule: Cicero trumphed as a Roman advocate just as the legal system descended into violence. Review of: LAWLESS REPUBLIC: The rise of Cicero and the decline of Rome / Josiah Osgood.
Rebecca Fraser. Finding the secret sauce: Manhattan’s peaceful transition from Dutch to English rule. Review of: TAKING MANHATTAN: The extraordinary events that created New York and shaped America / Russell Shorto.
Robert Tombs. South Sea trouble: Where Cambridge and the Church of England get it wrong on reparations. (Essay)
Lucy Lethbridge. Quaffing, nibbling, blessing: Tales of picnics, privilege and royal escapades. Review of: LADY GLENCONNER’S PICNIC PAPERS: And other feasts with friends / Anne Glenconner.
Jan Machielsen. Making monsters: Primeval fears still fire the human imagination. Review of: HUMANS: A monstrous history / Surekha Davies.
Surekha Davies. Beast and man: Finding ways to denigrate ‘the human other.’ Review of: ENCHANTED CREATURES: Our monsters and their meanings / Natalie Lawrence.
Stephen Glover. Spies in the newsroom: The murder of a journalist entangled with intelligence agencies. Review of: MURDER IN CAIRO: Solving a Cold War spy mystery / Peter Gillman and Emanuele Midolo (Biteback).
Kojo Karam. Competition is for losers: In the shadow economy, hidden wealth escapes the rules. Review of: THE HIDDEN GLOBE: How wealth hacks the world / Atossa Araxia Abrahamian -- OFFSHORE: Stealth wealth and the new colonialism / Brooke Harrington.
In Brief Review of: ZERO SUM: The arc of international business in Russia / Charles Hecker.
In Brief Review of: FREE: My search for meaning / Amanda Knox.
In Brief Review of: A DEAD CAT ON YOUR TABLE: A new guide to culture wars and how not to lose them / Peter York; illustrated by Martin Rowson (Byline).
In Brief Review of: THE MERMAID CHRONICLES: A midlife mer-moir / Megan Dunn.
80featherbear
May 7 updates:
Guardian May 4: high concept books have a moment May 7: reviews of The Names & The Illegals >74 featherbear:
NYT May 4: novel about Sweeny Todd's Mrs Lovett May 5: nonfic: multilevel marketing, 10 Rillington Place; novels about director GW Pabst, battling sisters, inheritance May 6: anatomy of a Pulitzer decision; novel about women migrants to the Arabian peninsula >70 featherbear:
Guardian May 4: high concept books have a moment May 7: reviews of The Names & The Illegals >74 featherbear:
NYT May 4: novel about Sweeny Todd's Mrs Lovett May 5: nonfic: multilevel marketing, 10 Rillington Place; novels about director GW Pabst, battling sisters, inheritance May 6: anatomy of a Pulitzer decision; novel about women migrants to the Arabian peninsula >70 featherbear:
81featherbear
Public Books May 2025
Lawrence Venuti. 05/07/2025: The Translator’s Dilemma: Thinking Versus Doing? Review of: Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles / Lydia Davis.
John Garrison. 05/13/2025: B-Sides: Percival Everett’s “Wounded.”> Reconsidering Wounded / Percival Everett (2005).
Richard Ovenden. 05/22/2025: Secrets in the Stacks. Review of: Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II / Elyse Graham.
Robert M. Geraci. 05/27/2025: The Future of Tech: Black Boxes or Clear Communication? Review of: Tech Agonistic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation / Greg M. Epstein (MIT Press) -- The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos / Laura Marks -- Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence / Kate Crawford.
Emma Adler. 05/29/2025: Chekhov’s Pandemic? Review of: Our Country Friends / Gary Shteyngart -- Tom Lake / Ann Patchett.
Lawrence Venuti. 05/07/2025: The Translator’s Dilemma: Thinking Versus Doing? Review of: Essays Two: On Proust, Translation, Foreign Languages, and the City of Arles / Lydia Davis.
John Garrison. 05/13/2025: B-Sides: Percival Everett’s “Wounded.”> Reconsidering Wounded / Percival Everett (2005).
Richard Ovenden. 05/22/2025: Secrets in the Stacks. Review of: Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II / Elyse Graham.
Robert M. Geraci. 05/27/2025: The Future of Tech: Black Boxes or Clear Communication? Review of: Tech Agonistic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation / Greg M. Epstein (MIT Press) -- The Fold: From Your Body to the Cosmos / Laura Marks -- Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence / Kate Crawford.
Emma Adler. 05/29/2025: Chekhov’s Pandemic? Review of: Our Country Friends / Gary Shteyngart -- Tom Lake / Ann Patchett.
82featherbear
NYRB Online May 29
Literature
Andrew Delbanco. The Connoisseur of Desire. Review of: The Annotated Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by James L.W. West III, with an introduction by Amor Towles (Library of America).
Anna Della Subin. ‘Her Own Cuneiform.’ Review of: Tablets: Secrets of the Clay / Dunya Mikhail.
Arts
Nina Siegal. The Spy in the Jeu de Paume. Review of: The Art Front: The Defense of French Collections, 1939–1945 / Rose Valland, translated from the French by Ophélie Jouan, with a foreword by Robert M. Edsel.
Chris Ware. Pure Thought on Paper. Review of: Sunday / Olivier Schrauwen. ("like Ulysses, an attempt to capture the thoughts, experiences, memories, musings, and mania of one man over a single day. It is also, like Ulysses, a masterpiece")
Joseph Horowitz. Grand Opera’s Tribulations. Review of Aida, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Michael Mayer, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, December 31, 2024–May 9, 2025. ("This season’s production of Aida at the Met sheds light on issues facing both the company and the genre of grand opera itself.")
History, Politics, & Society
Hari Kunzru. Doing Their Own Research. Review of: Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat / Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker -- Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists and the New Order in Wellness / Stewart Home.
Adam Hochschild. One Brief Shining Moment. Review of: The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860–1920 / Manisha Sinha.
Linda Greenhouse. How Brown Came North and Failed. Review of: The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Sue Halpern. For the Love of Money. Review of: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism / Sarah Wynn-Williams.
Rachel Nolan. ‘There’s Nothing for Me Here.’ Review of: Motherland: The Disintegration of a Family in a Collapsed Venezuela / Paula Ramón, with translations by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue (Amazon Crossing) -- Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela / William Neuman.
Alice Kaplan. Zionism Without Zion. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Christopher Ballaigue. Iran: A Grand Bargain? (Article: "The conditions necessary to negotiate a new nuclear deal and revive commercial ties between Iran and the US are in sight.")
Fintan O'Toole. Forced Amnesia. (Article: "The metamorphosis of J. D. Vance from economic realist to champion of Trump’s grievance-fueled politics reveals how little Democrats have done to connect with working-class Americans.")
Christopher Browning. Surely Not? (Article: "If the US president were a Manchurian candidate, are there things he would hesitate to do?")
Literature
Andrew Delbanco. The Connoisseur of Desire. Review of: The Annotated Great Gatsby / F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by James L.W. West III, with an introduction by Amor Towles (Library of America).
Anna Della Subin. ‘Her Own Cuneiform.’ Review of: Tablets: Secrets of the Clay / Dunya Mikhail.
Arts
Nina Siegal. The Spy in the Jeu de Paume. Review of: The Art Front: The Defense of French Collections, 1939–1945 / Rose Valland, translated from the French by Ophélie Jouan, with a foreword by Robert M. Edsel.
Chris Ware. Pure Thought on Paper. Review of: Sunday / Olivier Schrauwen. ("like Ulysses, an attempt to capture the thoughts, experiences, memories, musings, and mania of one man over a single day. It is also, like Ulysses, a masterpiece")
Joseph Horowitz. Grand Opera’s Tribulations. Review of Aida, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Michael Mayer, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, December 31, 2024–May 9, 2025. ("This season’s production of Aida at the Met sheds light on issues facing both the company and the genre of grand opera itself.")
History, Politics, & Society
Hari Kunzru. Doing Their Own Research. Review of: Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat / Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, and Julian Walker -- Fascist Yoga: Grifters, Occultists, White Supremacists and the New Order in Wellness / Stewart Home.
Adam Hochschild. One Brief Shining Moment. Review of: The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860–1920 / Manisha Sinha.
Linda Greenhouse. How Brown Came North and Failed. Review of: The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Sue Halpern. For the Love of Money. Review of: Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism / Sarah Wynn-Williams.
Rachel Nolan. ‘There’s Nothing for Me Here.’ Review of: Motherland: The Disintegration of a Family in a Collapsed Venezuela / Paula Ramón, with translations by Julia Sanches and Jennifer Shyue (Amazon Crossing) -- Things Are Never So Bad That They Can’t Get Worse: Inside the Collapse of Venezuela / William Neuman.
Alice Kaplan. Zionism Without Zion. Review of: Melting Point: Family, Memory, and the Search for a Promised Land / Rachel Cockerell.
Christopher Ballaigue. Iran: A Grand Bargain? (Article: "The conditions necessary to negotiate a new nuclear deal and revive commercial ties between Iran and the US are in sight.")
Fintan O'Toole. Forced Amnesia. (Article: "The metamorphosis of J. D. Vance from economic realist to champion of Trump’s grievance-fueled politics reveals how little Democrats have done to connect with working-class Americans.")
Christopher Browning. Surely Not? (Article: "If the US president were a Manchurian candidate, are there things he would hesitate to do?")
83featherbear
May 8 updates:
Atlantic May 7: Pat Buchanan May 8: Carl Hiassen >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 4: mystery novels May 8: Beatles >71 featherbear:
LARB Julius Caesar >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 6: Jane Austen May 8: WWII fiction >78 featherbear:
NYT Agatha Christie AI >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 6: Malcolm Forbes reviews The Director May 8: Judy Blume's 50 yr old novel & Honor Jones's debut novel, Trump fires Librarian of Congress >66 featherbear:
Atlantic May 7: Pat Buchanan May 8: Carl Hiassen >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 4: mystery novels May 8: Beatles >71 featherbear:
LARB Julius Caesar >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 6: Jane Austen May 8: WWII fiction >78 featherbear:
NYT Agatha Christie AI >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 6: Malcolm Forbes reviews The Director May 8: Judy Blume's 50 yr old novel & Honor Jones's debut novel, Trump fires Librarian of Congress >66 featherbear:
84featherbear
May 9 2025 updates:
Atlantic Mother's Day books recommends; another review of Ron Chernow's Mark Twain bio >77 featherbear:
Guardian romantasy conference failure >74 featherbear:
NYT family dynamics; book that inspired Spirited Away (maybe?), political demonstrators invade Columbia's Butler Library >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 7: women pilots in WWII May 8: what Michael Dirda's been reading May 9: Jews & Texas, a 2nd story on the Carla Hayden firing >66 featherbear:
Atlantic Mother's Day books recommends; another review of Ron Chernow's Mark Twain bio >77 featherbear:
Guardian romantasy conference failure >74 featherbear:
NYT family dynamics; book that inspired Spirited Away (maybe?), political demonstrators invade Columbia's Butler Library >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 7: women pilots in WWII May 8: what Michael Dirda's been reading May 9: Jews & Texas, a 2nd story on the Carla Hayden firing >66 featherbear:
85featherbear
Joseph Nye Jr. 1937-2025
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 05/08/2025: Joseph Nye, Political Scientist Who Extolled ‘Soft Power,’ Dies at 88. "He coined the term, arguing that a country’s global influence can’t be built on military might alone. Diplomats around the world paid heed."
"Sometimes considered the dean of American political science, Mr. Nye led the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and held senior jobs in the Carter and Clinton administrations.
"His thinking radiated far outside the Ivory Tower: He influenced diplomats and national security officials, and, as a soft-spoken, fatherly figure, he was a mentor to many who made careers in government.
"Mr. Nye developed the concept of soft power in the late 1980s to explain how America’s ability to get other nations to do what it wanted rested on more than the power of its military or economy; it also derived from American values.
"Soft power tools include diplomacy, economic assistance and trustworthy information, such as that provided in Voice of America broadcasts. He laid out his thinking in a 2004 book, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.”
"Mr. Nye’s insight gained wide currency with political leaders across ideological and national borders. It was cited favorably by the conservative Republican Newt Gingrich and the president of China, in 2007. Mr. Nye was invited to dinner in Beijing, where the foreign minister asked him how China could increase its soft power. Australia revised its diplomacy to incorporate soft power, telling the story of Australian culture to the world.
"He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard with a dissertation about East Africa emerging from colonialism."
Nye's LT page is https://www.librarything.com/author/nyejosephs
One 1997 title that sounds pertinent: Why People Don't Trust Government. Also, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone (2002) -- Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (2020).
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 05/08/2025: Joseph Nye, Political Scientist Who Extolled ‘Soft Power,’ Dies at 88. "He coined the term, arguing that a country’s global influence can’t be built on military might alone. Diplomats around the world paid heed."
"Sometimes considered the dean of American political science, Mr. Nye led the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and held senior jobs in the Carter and Clinton administrations.
"His thinking radiated far outside the Ivory Tower: He influenced diplomats and national security officials, and, as a soft-spoken, fatherly figure, he was a mentor to many who made careers in government.
"Mr. Nye developed the concept of soft power in the late 1980s to explain how America’s ability to get other nations to do what it wanted rested on more than the power of its military or economy; it also derived from American values.
"Soft power tools include diplomacy, economic assistance and trustworthy information, such as that provided in Voice of America broadcasts. He laid out his thinking in a 2004 book, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics.”
"Mr. Nye’s insight gained wide currency with political leaders across ideological and national borders. It was cited favorably by the conservative Republican Newt Gingrich and the president of China, in 2007. Mr. Nye was invited to dinner in Beijing, where the foreign minister asked him how China could increase its soft power. Australia revised its diplomacy to incorporate soft power, telling the story of Australian culture to the world.
"He earned his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard with a dissertation about East Africa emerging from colonialism."
Nye's LT page is https://www.librarything.com/author/nyejosephs
One 1997 title that sounds pertinent: Why People Don't Trust Government. Also, The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone (2002) -- Do Morals Matter?: Presidents and Foreign Policy from FDR to Trump (2020).
86featherbear
May 10 updates:
Guardian military academies & DEI >74 featherbear:
LARB May 9: pt 1 of a 2 pt review of environment books May 10: pt. 2 >69 featherbear:
New Yorker muscly women >67 featherbear:
NYT another review of Melting Point >70 featherbear:
Guardian military academies & DEI >74 featherbear:
LARB May 9: pt 1 of a 2 pt review of environment books May 10: pt. 2 >69 featherbear:
New Yorker muscly women >67 featherbear:
NYT another review of Melting Point >70 featherbear:
87featherbear
The Point May 2025:
Michael Clune, Jesse McCarthy, Sophie Pinkham, Merle Emre. 05/07/2025: Can Criticism Survive Inside the University? : “The End of the University and the Future of Criticism”: Part I. "opening statements from the recent conference, “The End of the University and The Future of Criticism,” which took place on the University of Chicago campus on Thursday, April 3rd."
Timothy Aubry. 05/14/2025: Gateway Books: The lessons of a defunct canon.
Michael Clune, Jesse McCarthy, Sophie Pinkham, Merle Emre. 05/07/2025: Can Criticism Survive Inside the University? : “The End of the University and the Future of Criticism”: Part I. "opening statements from the recent conference, “The End of the University and The Future of Criticism,” which took place on the University of Chicago campus on Thursday, April 3rd."
Timothy Aubry. 05/14/2025: Gateway Books: The lessons of a defunct canon.
88featherbear
May 11 2025 updates:
The Critic Nazi prosecutor >71 featherbear:
New Yorker substack & literature? >67 featherbear:
NYT nonfiction on selfcare >70 featherbear:
The Critic Nazi prosecutor >71 featherbear:
New Yorker substack & literature? >67 featherbear:
NYT nonfiction on selfcare >70 featherbear:
89featherbear
May 12 updates:
The Critic (UK) 3 novels >71 featherbear:
Guardian Slags >74 featherbear:
NYT May 11: Ocean Vuong novel >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 10: oranges May 11: Dave Barry memoir >66 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) 3 novels >71 featherbear:
Guardian Slags >74 featherbear:
NYT May 11: Ocean Vuong novel >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 10: oranges May 11: Dave Barry memoir >66 featherbear:
90featherbear
May 13 2025 updates:
Atlantic Alzheimer's >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) Central European emigres & British culture >71 featherbear:
LARB NEH grants >69 featherbear:
New Yorker excerpt from the Tapper/Thompson book reviewed by NYT below >67 featherbear:
NYT Tapper & Thompson's book on Biden's decline >70 featherbear:
Public Books Percival Everett's Wounded >81 featherbear:
Atlantic Alzheimer's >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) Central European emigres & British culture >71 featherbear:
LARB NEH grants >69 featherbear:
New Yorker excerpt from the Tapper/Thompson book reviewed by NYT below >67 featherbear:
NYT Tapper & Thompson's book on Biden's decline >70 featherbear:
Public Books Percival Everett's Wounded >81 featherbear:
91featherbear
Richard Steigmann-Gall. Society for U.S. Intellectual History, 05/11/2025: “The Wolves Came.” Review of: Did it Happen Here? Perspectives on Fascism and America / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins.
92featherbear
The Nation May 2025
Dan Sinykin. 05/11/2025: Pay Attention!: the invention of close reading. Review of: On Close Reading / John Guillory.
Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker. 05/13/2025: A World Turned Upside Down. Review of: Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian / Michael Braddick.
Dan Sinykin. 05/11/2025: Pay Attention!: the invention of close reading. Review of: On Close Reading / John Guillory.
Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker. 05/13/2025: A World Turned Upside Down. Review of: Christopher Hill: The Life of a Radical Historian / Michael Braddick.
93featherbear
Washington Monthly May 2025
Anita Jain. 05/07/2025: How the Digital Age Changed Us. Review of: Like: The Button That Changed the World / Martin Reeves & Bob Goodson -- Searches: selfhood in the digital age / Vauhini Vara.
Lloyd Green. 05/12/2025: Diversity Without Racial Preference. Review of: Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges / Richard D. Kahlenberg (PublicAffairs).
Sara Bahtia. 05/15/2025: Clever the Twain Shall Meet. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
Anita Jain. 05/07/2025: How the Digital Age Changed Us. Review of: Like: The Button That Changed the World / Martin Reeves & Bob Goodson -- Searches: selfhood in the digital age / Vauhini Vara.
Lloyd Green. 05/12/2025: Diversity Without Racial Preference. Review of: Class Matters: The Fight to Get Beyond Race Preferences, Reduce Inequality, and Build Real Diversity at America’s Colleges / Richard D. Kahlenberg (PublicAffairs).
Sara Bahtia. 05/15/2025: Clever the Twain Shall Meet. Review of: Mark Twain / Ron Chernow.
94featherbear
TLS May 16, 2025|No. 6372
Featured
Mary Beard (from the TLS current issue landing page). A world without DEI?
Holly Fairgrieve. Virginia Woolf’s muse: In search of the real Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith. (Essay)
Ian Sansom. A graveyard shift: On finding chicken bones in cemeteries. (Essay)
Peter Thonemann. Much in little: Rome’s fascination with smallness. Review of: THE SMALL STUFF OF ROMAN ANTIQUITY / Emily Gowers.
Claire Lowdon. The million details of Helen Garner: Diaries and novels that felt like ‘the advance guard to auto-fiction.’ Review of: MONKEY GRIP / Helen Garner -- THE CHILDREN’S BACH / Helen Garner -- HOW TO END A STORY: Collected diaries / Helen Garner -- THIS HOUSE OF GRIEF: The story of a murder trial / Helen Garner.
Literature
Vanessa Curtis. ‘Mrs Dalloway’ at 100: The life and afterlife of Woolf’s classic. Review of: MRS DALLOWAY: Biography of a novel / Mark Hussey.
Claire Harman. Our secret friend: Jane Austen as a ‘life guide.’ Review of: LIVING WITH JANE AUSTEN / Janet Todd.
Claudia Nitschke. Lost women: German literature from a feminist perspective. Review of: RE-VIEWING THE CANON: Feminist readings of German literature from the age of Goethe to the present / Elizabeth Boa (Legenda).
Ian Cooper. Porcelain and ruins: The bombing of Dresden captured in Durs Grünbein’s elegiac poetry. Review of: Psyche Running: Selected Poems, 2005–2022 (The German List) / Durs Grünbein; translated by Karen Leeder.
Stephanie Sy-Quia. God of threads: Historical retrieval in three poetry collections. Review of: ELEANOR AMONG THE SAINTS / Rachel Mann -- THE LOST BOOK OF BARKYNGE / Ruth Wiggins (Shearsman) -- LOVE LEANS OVER THE TABLE / Rosie Jackson. (Medieval pastiche poems)
Kate McLoughlin. Crumpled notes: Feuds, rivalries and blackmail in a selection of tales from Karnataka. Review of: HEART LAMP: Selected stories / Banu Mushtaq; translated by Deepa Bhasthi.
Anna Aslanyan. No true stories: A man pieces together the life of his dead friend. Review of: A LEOPARD-SKIN HAT / Anne Serre; translated by Mark Hutchinson.
Eri Hotta. Is anybody there?: Interconnected tales of immortality and extinction. Review of: UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD / Hiromi Kawakami; translated by Asa Yoneda.
Ben Hutchinson. Goodbye Nordic cool: A novel of memory in two and three dimensions. Review of: AIR: Roman / Christian Krach.
In Brief Review of: DIABELLI / Hermann Burger; translated by Adrian Nathan West (Wakefield Press).
In Brief Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
In Brief Review of: A GRANITE SILENCE / Nina Allen.
Arts
Harrison Stetler. Performing the law: A theatrical examination of ‘immediate trials.’ Review of Lorraine de Sagazan's and Guillaume Poix's play LÉVIATHAN, Ateliers Berthier, Odéon – Théâtre de L’Europe, Paris, until May 23.
Toby Lichtig. Circles and ghosts: Conor McPherson’s new play, with echoes of Chekhov. Review of THE BRIGHTENING AIR, Old Vic, London, until June 14.
Travis Elborough. Bromley to Berlin: Retracing David Bowie’s steps and his musical progress. Review of: BOWIELAND: Walking in the footsteps of David / Peter Carpenter.
In Brief Review of: QUANTUM MECHANICS AND AVANT-GARDE MUSIC: Shadows of the void / Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (Springer).
Religion
Jonathan Egid. Faith in the deep past: African religious belief before written history. Review of: ANCIENT AFRICAN RELIGIONS: A history / Robert M. Baum.
Jan Westerhoff. Empire and dharma: A tour of ancient India’s wonders, religious and non-religious. Review of: RELIGIONS OF EARLY INDIA: A cultural history / Richard H. Davis.
Science & Technology
Melanie Mitchell. If it quacks like a duck: AI has captured the semantics of language, but does it have a mind? Review of: THESE STRANGE NEW MINDS: How AI learned to talk and what it means / Christopher Summerfield.
In Brief Review of: THE MIDDLE AGES IN COMPUTER GAMES: Ludic approaches to the medieval and medievalism / Robert Houghton (D.S. Brewer).
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Peter Stothard. Pompeii for all: The curator of the site justifies his populism. Review of: THE BURIED CITY: Unearthing the real Pompeii / Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
Tom Lathan. Depths of loss: A diver explores drowned settlements and his personal grief. Review of: THE DROWNED PLACES: Diving in search of Atlantis / Damian Le Bas (Chatto & Windus).
Sam McBean. Looking at both sides: Nine mini biographies of bisexual men and women. Review of: UNEVEN: Nine lives that redefined bisexuality / Sam Mills.
Nelly Kaprièlian-Self. ‘Families, I hate you!: Toxic behaviour behind closed doors in literary France. Review of: PATRONYME / Vanessa Springora -- LA FAILLE / Blandine Rinkel.
In Brief Review of: HOMELAND: The war on terror in American life / Richard Beck.
In Brief Review of: THE POSSIBILITY OF TENDERNESS: A Jamaican memoir of plants and dreams / Jason Allen-Paisant.
Featured
Mary Beard (from the TLS current issue landing page). A world without DEI?
Holly Fairgrieve. Virginia Woolf’s muse: In search of the real Clarissa Dalloway and Septimus Smith. (Essay)
Ian Sansom. A graveyard shift: On finding chicken bones in cemeteries. (Essay)
Peter Thonemann. Much in little: Rome’s fascination with smallness. Review of: THE SMALL STUFF OF ROMAN ANTIQUITY / Emily Gowers.
Claire Lowdon. The million details of Helen Garner: Diaries and novels that felt like ‘the advance guard to auto-fiction.’ Review of: MONKEY GRIP / Helen Garner -- THE CHILDREN’S BACH / Helen Garner -- HOW TO END A STORY: Collected diaries / Helen Garner -- THIS HOUSE OF GRIEF: The story of a murder trial / Helen Garner.
Literature
Vanessa Curtis. ‘Mrs Dalloway’ at 100: The life and afterlife of Woolf’s classic. Review of: MRS DALLOWAY: Biography of a novel / Mark Hussey.
Claire Harman. Our secret friend: Jane Austen as a ‘life guide.’ Review of: LIVING WITH JANE AUSTEN / Janet Todd.
Claudia Nitschke. Lost women: German literature from a feminist perspective. Review of: RE-VIEWING THE CANON: Feminist readings of German literature from the age of Goethe to the present / Elizabeth Boa (Legenda).
Ian Cooper. Porcelain and ruins: The bombing of Dresden captured in Durs Grünbein’s elegiac poetry. Review of: Psyche Running: Selected Poems, 2005–2022 (The German List) / Durs Grünbein; translated by Karen Leeder.
Stephanie Sy-Quia. God of threads: Historical retrieval in three poetry collections. Review of: ELEANOR AMONG THE SAINTS / Rachel Mann -- THE LOST BOOK OF BARKYNGE / Ruth Wiggins (Shearsman) -- LOVE LEANS OVER THE TABLE / Rosie Jackson. (Medieval pastiche poems)
Kate McLoughlin. Crumpled notes: Feuds, rivalries and blackmail in a selection of tales from Karnataka. Review of: HEART LAMP: Selected stories / Banu Mushtaq; translated by Deepa Bhasthi.
Anna Aslanyan. No true stories: A man pieces together the life of his dead friend. Review of: A LEOPARD-SKIN HAT / Anne Serre; translated by Mark Hutchinson.
Eri Hotta. Is anybody there?: Interconnected tales of immortality and extinction. Review of: UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD / Hiromi Kawakami; translated by Asa Yoneda.
Ben Hutchinson. Goodbye Nordic cool: A novel of memory in two and three dimensions. Review of: AIR: Roman / Christian Krach.
In Brief Review of: DIABELLI / Hermann Burger; translated by Adrian Nathan West (Wakefield Press).
In Brief Review of: Audition: a novel / Katie Kitamura.
In Brief Review of: A GRANITE SILENCE / Nina Allen.
Arts
Harrison Stetler. Performing the law: A theatrical examination of ‘immediate trials.’ Review of Lorraine de Sagazan's and Guillaume Poix's play LÉVIATHAN, Ateliers Berthier, Odéon – Théâtre de L’Europe, Paris, until May 23.
Toby Lichtig. Circles and ghosts: Conor McPherson’s new play, with echoes of Chekhov. Review of THE BRIGHTENING AIR, Old Vic, London, until June 14.
Travis Elborough. Bromley to Berlin: Retracing David Bowie’s steps and his musical progress. Review of: BOWIELAND: Walking in the footsteps of David / Peter Carpenter.
In Brief Review of: QUANTUM MECHANICS AND AVANT-GARDE MUSIC: Shadows of the void / Rakhat-Bi Abdyssagin (Springer).
Religion
Jonathan Egid. Faith in the deep past: African religious belief before written history. Review of: ANCIENT AFRICAN RELIGIONS: A history / Robert M. Baum.
Jan Westerhoff. Empire and dharma: A tour of ancient India’s wonders, religious and non-religious. Review of: RELIGIONS OF EARLY INDIA: A cultural history / Richard H. Davis.
Science & Technology
Melanie Mitchell. If it quacks like a duck: AI has captured the semantics of language, but does it have a mind? Review of: THESE STRANGE NEW MINDS: How AI learned to talk and what it means / Christopher Summerfield.
In Brief Review of: THE MIDDLE AGES IN COMPUTER GAMES: Ludic approaches to the medieval and medievalism / Robert Houghton (D.S. Brewer).
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Peter Stothard. Pompeii for all: The curator of the site justifies his populism. Review of: THE BURIED CITY: Unearthing the real Pompeii / Gabriel Zuchtriegel.
Tom Lathan. Depths of loss: A diver explores drowned settlements and his personal grief. Review of: THE DROWNED PLACES: Diving in search of Atlantis / Damian Le Bas (Chatto & Windus).
Sam McBean. Looking at both sides: Nine mini biographies of bisexual men and women. Review of: UNEVEN: Nine lives that redefined bisexuality / Sam Mills.
Nelly Kaprièlian-Self. ‘Families, I hate you!: Toxic behaviour behind closed doors in literary France. Review of: PATRONYME / Vanessa Springora -- LA FAILLE / Blandine Rinkel.
In Brief Review of: HOMELAND: The war on terror in American life / Richard Beck.
In Brief Review of: THE POSSIBILITY OF TENDERNESS: A Jamaican memoir of plants and dreams / Jason Allen-Paisant.
95featherbear
May 15 2025 updates:
Atlantic May 15: summer reading list; what should you let your children read >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 14: British book industry >71 featherbear:
Guardian May 15: impact of Malcolm X; new Helen Oyeyemi novel; book burning video >74 featherbear:
LARB May 15: Trump & the end of the old order >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 13: reducing crime via libraries May 14: teaching Mrs Dalloway to high schoolers; Mrs Dalloway at 100 >78 featherbear:
NYT May 14: food critic memoir May 15: Apple & China; cemetery living; who controls Library of Congress? >70 featherbear:
The Point May 14: gateway books >87 featherbear:
WaPo May 9: Amanda Hess having a child May 13: NGO vs Honduran gang May 14: Tapper/Thompson book on Biden's decline; successful parenting; retail employee novel May 15: new novel by the author of American Dirt; Ron Chernow Twain bio; IRA & American guns >66 featherbear:
Atlantic May 15: summer reading list; what should you let your children read >77 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 14: British book industry >71 featherbear:
Guardian May 15: impact of Malcolm X; new Helen Oyeyemi novel; book burning video >74 featherbear:
LARB May 15: Trump & the end of the old order >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 13: reducing crime via libraries May 14: teaching Mrs Dalloway to high schoolers; Mrs Dalloway at 100 >78 featherbear:
NYT May 14: food critic memoir May 15: Apple & China; cemetery living; who controls Library of Congress? >70 featherbear:
The Point May 14: gateway books >87 featherbear:
WaPo May 9: Amanda Hess having a child May 13: NGO vs Honduran gang May 14: Tapper/Thompson book on Biden's decline; successful parenting; retail employee novel May 15: new novel by the author of American Dirt; Ron Chernow Twain bio; IRA & American guns >66 featherbear:
96featherbear
Yale Review May 2025
Edmund de Waal. 05/13/2025: The Ragpicker's Way: Among scraps and ruins, an artist gathers a different kind of archive.
John Cassidy, interviewer James Surowiecki. 05/27/2025: John Cassidy: The author on capitalism’s critics, why everyone is so unhappy with the system, and what may come next. Regarding Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
Edmund de Waal. 05/13/2025: The Ragpicker's Way: Among scraps and ruins, an artist gathers a different kind of archive.
John Cassidy, interviewer James Surowiecki. 05/27/2025: John Cassidy: The author on capitalism’s critics, why everyone is so unhappy with the system, and what may come next. Regarding Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI / John Cassidy.
97featherbear
Quillette May 2025
Sean Welsh. 05/15/2025: Truth Telling and Colonial History. Review of: Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement / Henry Reynolds.
Thomas P. Balazs. 05/25/2025: AI and the Death of Literary Criticism.
Sean Welsh. 05/15/2025: Truth Telling and Colonial History. Review of: Truth-Telling: History, Sovereignty and the Uluru Statement / Henry Reynolds.
Thomas P. Balazs. 05/25/2025: AI and the Death of Literary Criticism.
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Liberties May 2025
Michael Kimmage. 05/2025: We Must Save The Books. Regarding the collection of the Wilson Center, recently 86d by the current Administration.
Henry Oliver. 05/2025: Woolfish Perception. "She had the genius to exhaust a whole line of artistic inquiry, and many have felt exhausted by her."
Michael Kimmage. 05/2025: We Must Save The Books. Regarding the collection of the Wilson Center, recently 86d by the current Administration.
Henry Oliver. 05/2025: Woolfish Perception. "She had the genius to exhaust a whole line of artistic inquiry, and many have felt exhausted by her."
99featherbear
May 16 2025 updates:
LARB AI's influence on education & translation >69 featherbear:
LitHub Wizard of Oz after 125 years; Jane Austen & romcoms >78 featherbear:
New Yorker May 5: battling memoirs of the New Yorker >67 featherbear:
WaPo San Francisco is sinking (a novel) >66 featherbear:
Washington Monthly May 15: Ron Chernow biography of Mark Twain >93 featherbear:
LARB AI's influence on education & translation >69 featherbear:
LitHub Wizard of Oz after 125 years; Jane Austen & romcoms >78 featherbear:
New Yorker May 5: battling memoirs of the New Yorker >67 featherbear:
WaPo San Francisco is sinking (a novel) >66 featherbear:
Washington Monthly May 15: Ron Chernow biography of Mark Twain >93 featherbear:
100featherbear
May 17 updates:
LARB May 16: NEA, small publishers & literary magazines May 17: alternative media >69 featherbear:
NYT May 14: Capitalism & its critics >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 16: motherhood >66 featherbear:
LARB May 16: NEA, small publishers & literary magazines May 17: alternative media >69 featherbear:
NYT May 14: Capitalism & its critics >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 16: motherhood >66 featherbear:
101featherbear
May 19 2025
New Yorker May 19: reviews of 2 books on Sam Altman >67 featherbear:
NYT May 14: Ethicist opines regarding purchasing used books May 19: reviews of 2 books on Sam Altman >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 18: review of Circular Motion / Alex Foster May 19: continuing interest in Miranda July's All Fours >66 featherbear:
New Yorker May 19: reviews of 2 books on Sam Altman >67 featherbear:
NYT May 14: Ethicist opines regarding purchasing used books May 19: reviews of 2 books on Sam Altman >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 18: review of Circular Motion / Alex Foster May 19: continuing interest in Miranda July's All Fours >66 featherbear:
102featherbear
fivebooks.com May 2025
Recommended by Five Books editors and interviewees. 05/05/2025: Long Novels. "Here we've listed some of the novels recommended on Five Books that are 400,000 words or more long, from literary classics to potboilers."
Dmitry Grozoubinski, interviewer Benedict King. 05/18/2025: The best books on Tariffs. Recommended: Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters / Anthea Roberts & Nicolas Lamp -- Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (Markets and Governments in Economic History) / Douglas A. Irwin --Between Market Economy and State Capitalism (Cambridge International Trade and Economic Law) / Henry Gao & Weihuan Zhou (Cambridge University Press) -- International trade law a casebook for a system in crisis / Henry Gao et al.* -- The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization / Richard Baldwin.
*A free textbook, though it doesn't appear the link works at the fivebooks site; however, a google search retrieved this: https://genevatradeplatform.org/e-casebook/
Also of interest: Why Politicians Lie About Trade: ... and What You Need to Know About It / Dmitry Grozoubinski
Recommended by Five Books editors and interviewees. 05/05/2025: Long Novels. "Here we've listed some of the novels recommended on Five Books that are 400,000 words or more long, from literary classics to potboilers."
Dmitry Grozoubinski, interviewer Benedict King. 05/18/2025: The best books on Tariffs. Recommended: Six Faces of Globalization: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters / Anthea Roberts & Nicolas Lamp -- Clashing over Commerce: A History of US Trade Policy (Markets and Governments in Economic History) / Douglas A. Irwin --Between Market Economy and State Capitalism (Cambridge International Trade and Economic Law) / Henry Gao & Weihuan Zhou (Cambridge University Press) -- International trade law a casebook for a system in crisis / Henry Gao et al.* -- The Great Convergence: Information Technology and the New Globalization / Richard Baldwin.
*A free textbook, though it doesn't appear the link works at the fivebooks site; however, a google search retrieved this: https://genevatradeplatform.org/e-casebook/
Also of interest: Why Politicians Lie About Trade: ... and What You Need to Know About It / Dmitry Grozoubinski
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Orwell Prize Finalists:
Orwell Prizes. "We are proud to announce the finalists for the 2025 Orwell Prizes. Click on each entry to find out more about their shortlisted work. Winners in all four categories will be announced at the Prize Ceremony on 25th June 2025."
For the record, the finalists are: At the edge of Empire: a family's reckoning with China / Edward Wong -- Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World / Anne Applebaum -- BROKEN THREADS: my family from empire to independence / Mishal Husain -- Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary / Victoria Amelina -- The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin / Lucy Ash -- The Coming Storm: A Journey into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine / Gabriel Gatehouse -- The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice / Simon Parkin (UK title: The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad) -- The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 / Vladislav Zubok.
Orwell Prizes. "We are proud to announce the finalists for the 2025 Orwell Prizes. Click on each entry to find out more about their shortlisted work. Winners in all four categories will be announced at the Prize Ceremony on 25th June 2025."
For the record, the finalists are: At the edge of Empire: a family's reckoning with China / Edward Wong -- Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World / Anne Applebaum -- BROKEN THREADS: my family from empire to independence / Mishal Husain -- Looking at Women Looking at War: A War and Justice Diary / Victoria Amelina -- The Baton and the Cross: Russia's Church from Pagans to Putin / Lucy Ash -- The Coming Storm: A Journey into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine / Gabriel Gatehouse -- The Forbidden Garden: The Botanists of Besieged Leningrad and Their Impossible Choice / Simon Parkin (UK title: The Forbidden Garden of Leningrad) -- The World of the Cold War: 1945-1991 / Vladislav Zubok.
104featherbear
May 20 updates:
Guardian May 19: Madeleine Thein's Book of Records novel May 20: how to save the Amazon >74 featherbear:
The Nation May 13 Christopher Hill bio >92 featherbear:
NYT May 19: Dresden files May 20: new graphic novel from Alison Bechtel; reprint of Smithereens >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 19: afterlife of Malcolm X book >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
Guardian May 19: Madeleine Thein's Book of Records novel May 20: how to save the Amazon >74 featherbear:
The Nation May 13 Christopher Hill bio >92 featherbear:
NYT May 19: Dresden files May 20: new graphic novel from Alison Bechtel; reprint of Smithereens >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 19: afterlife of Malcolm X book >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
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Karen Fischer. Publishers Weekly, 05/16/2025: It May Be Too Late for Rural Libraries to Weather the IMLS Storm.
106featherbear
TLS May 23, 2025|No. 6373
Featured
Eimear McBride. Exile and otherness: The bond between Joyce and his biographer Richard Ellmann. Review of: ELLMANN’S JOYCE: The biography of a masterpiece and its maker / Zachary Leader.
Robert Bevan. From woke to comrade: Should class solidarity trump identity politics? Review of: MINORITY RULES: Adventures in the culture war / Ash Sarkar.
Amy Knight. Wagner’s march on Moscow: How ‘Putin’s Chef’ led a mercenary mutiny that shook the Kremlin. Review of: PUTIN’S SLEDGEHAMMER: The Wagner Group and Russia’s collapse into mercenary chaos / Candace Rondeaux -- DOWNFALL: Putin, Prigozhin, and the new fight for the future of Russia / Anna Arutunyan and Mark Galeotti -- THE WAGNER GROUP: Inside Russia’s mercenary army / Jack Margolin -- DEATH IS OUR BUSINESS: Russian mercenaries and the new era of private warfare / John Lechner.
Norma Clarke. The past is not a foreign country: Geoff Dyer’s memoir of family and English identity in the light of the Californian present. Review of: HOMEWORK: A memoir / Geoff Dyer.
Mary Beard. How John North changed Roman Religion. (from the TLS current issue landing page)
Literature & Bibliography
Alberto Manguel. The universe in a book: The organiszation of knowledge in the Spanish Golden Age. Review of: The universe in a book: The organiszation of knowledge in the Spanish Golden Age / Seth Kimmel (University of Chicago Press).
Alice Wadsworth. This is parenthood: Love, care and uncertainty in a salt-washed Brighton. Review of: Gunk / Saba Sams.
Michael LaPointe. Keeping a critical distance: Romance and clever conversation in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. Review of: THE BOYS / Leo Robson (riverrun).
Russell Williams. Of hope and calculation: Tales of love, conflict, survival – and betrayal. Review of: THE DESERTERS / Mathias Énard; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
Lindsey Hilsum. Love story: A collaborationist family fails to face up to its wartime past. Review of: THE PROPAGANDIST / Cécile Desprairies; translated by Natasha Lehrer.
In Brief Review of: SHAKESPEARE'S CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY: A dictionary / Janice Valls-Russell and Katherine Heavey, editors (Arden Shakespeare).
In Brief Review of: CARRION CROW / Heather Parry.
In Brief Review of: MARY SHELLEY IN BATH / Mary Shelley; introduced by Fiona Sampson.
In Brief Review of: RHIZODONT / Katrina Porteous.
In Brief Review of: DEAR WRITER: Pep talks and practical advice for the creative life / Maggie Smith.
Arts
Boyd Tonkin. Trials by fire: Creation and destruction, death and rebirth: Anselm Kiefer at eighty. Review of the exhibitions ANSELM KIEFER: Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, until June 9 -- ANSELM KIEFER: Early works, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until June 15 -- and the catalog: ANSELM KIEFER: Where have all the flowers gone / Anselm Kiefer, Simon Schama and Antje von Graevenitz.
Gabriel Josipovici. Artists in turbulent times: The shared struggles of Hieronymous Bosch, Max Beckmann and William Kentridge. Review of: ART IN A STATE OF SIEGE / Joseph Leo Koerner.
Helen Scales. Waves of hope and horror: David Attenborough on the future of our oceans. Review of the film OCEAN With David Attenborough.
Philosophy
Steven E. Ascheim. Arendt in modern eyes: A critique of the philosopher’s ‘colour blindness’ to race. Review of: ARENDT'S SOLIDARITY: Anti-Semitism and racism in the Atlantic world / David D. Kim.
Clare Carlisle. Yoga as freedom: The rich cross-cultural exchange between Indian and German thought. Review of: INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA IN GERMANY / Owen Ware.
Natural History
Mark Nayler. Walks with wolves: Successful European conservation policy pits farmer against predator. Review of: LONE WOLF: Walking the faultlines of Europe / Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann).
In Brief Review of: BIRD SCHOOL: A beginner in the wood / Adam Nicolson.
History, Politics, & Society
Regina Rini. Move fast and break people: Kafka and the American state. (Essay)
Lauro Martines. Results from the History Lab: A personal approach to the Renaissance. Review of: INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE: Myths of a golden age / Ada Palmer.
Christine Kinealy. A blight on the Empire: Britain’s response to the Irish Great Famine. Review of: ROT: A history of the Irish Famine / Padraic X. Scanlan.
Ysende Maxtone Graham. A Cold War romance: How a Soviet and British couple bridged worlds through art. Review of: PARALLEL LIVES: A love story from a lost continent / Iain Pears.
Sarah Watling. Toxic relations: Chemical warfare and buried family memories. Review of: CHILDREN OF RADIUM: A buried inheritance Joe Dunthorne.
In Brief Review of: THE DEATH OF STALIN / Sheila Fitzpatrick.
Featured
Eimear McBride. Exile and otherness: The bond between Joyce and his biographer Richard Ellmann. Review of: ELLMANN’S JOYCE: The biography of a masterpiece and its maker / Zachary Leader.
Robert Bevan. From woke to comrade: Should class solidarity trump identity politics? Review of: MINORITY RULES: Adventures in the culture war / Ash Sarkar.
Amy Knight. Wagner’s march on Moscow: How ‘Putin’s Chef’ led a mercenary mutiny that shook the Kremlin. Review of: PUTIN’S SLEDGEHAMMER: The Wagner Group and Russia’s collapse into mercenary chaos / Candace Rondeaux -- DOWNFALL: Putin, Prigozhin, and the new fight for the future of Russia / Anna Arutunyan and Mark Galeotti -- THE WAGNER GROUP: Inside Russia’s mercenary army / Jack Margolin -- DEATH IS OUR BUSINESS: Russian mercenaries and the new era of private warfare / John Lechner.
Norma Clarke. The past is not a foreign country: Geoff Dyer’s memoir of family and English identity in the light of the Californian present. Review of: HOMEWORK: A memoir / Geoff Dyer.
Mary Beard. How John North changed Roman Religion. (from the TLS current issue landing page)
Literature & Bibliography
Alberto Manguel. The universe in a book: The organiszation of knowledge in the Spanish Golden Age. Review of: The universe in a book: The organiszation of knowledge in the Spanish Golden Age / Seth Kimmel (University of Chicago Press).
Alice Wadsworth. This is parenthood: Love, care and uncertainty in a salt-washed Brighton. Review of: Gunk / Saba Sams.
Michael LaPointe. Keeping a critical distance: Romance and clever conversation in the run-up to the 2012 Olympics. Review of: THE BOYS / Leo Robson (riverrun).
Russell Williams. Of hope and calculation: Tales of love, conflict, survival – and betrayal. Review of: THE DESERTERS / Mathias Énard; translated by Charlotte Mandell.
Lindsey Hilsum. Love story: A collaborationist family fails to face up to its wartime past. Review of: THE PROPAGANDIST / Cécile Desprairies; translated by Natasha Lehrer.
In Brief Review of: SHAKESPEARE'S CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY: A dictionary / Janice Valls-Russell and Katherine Heavey, editors (Arden Shakespeare).
In Brief Review of: CARRION CROW / Heather Parry.
In Brief Review of: MARY SHELLEY IN BATH / Mary Shelley; introduced by Fiona Sampson.
In Brief Review of: RHIZODONT / Katrina Porteous.
In Brief Review of: DEAR WRITER: Pep talks and practical advice for the creative life / Maggie Smith.
Arts
Boyd Tonkin. Trials by fire: Creation and destruction, death and rebirth: Anselm Kiefer at eighty. Review of the exhibitions ANSELM KIEFER: Sag mir wo die Blumen sind, Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, until June 9 -- ANSELM KIEFER: Early works, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, until June 15 -- and the catalog: ANSELM KIEFER: Where have all the flowers gone / Anselm Kiefer, Simon Schama and Antje von Graevenitz.
Gabriel Josipovici. Artists in turbulent times: The shared struggles of Hieronymous Bosch, Max Beckmann and William Kentridge. Review of: ART IN A STATE OF SIEGE / Joseph Leo Koerner.
Helen Scales. Waves of hope and horror: David Attenborough on the future of our oceans. Review of the film OCEAN With David Attenborough.
Philosophy
Steven E. Ascheim. Arendt in modern eyes: A critique of the philosopher’s ‘colour blindness’ to race. Review of: ARENDT'S SOLIDARITY: Anti-Semitism and racism in the Atlantic world / David D. Kim.
Clare Carlisle. Yoga as freedom: The rich cross-cultural exchange between Indian and German thought. Review of: INDIAN PHILOSOPHY AND YOGA IN GERMANY / Owen Ware.
Natural History
Mark Nayler. Walks with wolves: Successful European conservation policy pits farmer against predator. Review of: LONE WOLF: Walking the faultlines of Europe / Adam Weymouth (Hutchinson Heinemann).
In Brief Review of: BIRD SCHOOL: A beginner in the wood / Adam Nicolson.
History, Politics, & Society
Regina Rini. Move fast and break people: Kafka and the American state. (Essay)
Lauro Martines. Results from the History Lab: A personal approach to the Renaissance. Review of: INVENTING THE RENAISSANCE: Myths of a golden age / Ada Palmer.
Christine Kinealy. A blight on the Empire: Britain’s response to the Irish Great Famine. Review of: ROT: A history of the Irish Famine / Padraic X. Scanlan.
Ysende Maxtone Graham. A Cold War romance: How a Soviet and British couple bridged worlds through art. Review of: PARALLEL LIVES: A love story from a lost continent / Iain Pears.
Sarah Watling. Toxic relations: Chemical warfare and buried family memories. Review of: CHILDREN OF RADIUM: A buried inheritance Joe Dunthorne.
In Brief Review of: THE DEATH OF STALIN / Sheila Fitzpatrick.
110featherbear
May 22 2025 updates:
The Critic UK May 22: Roman ruins >71 featherbear:
Guardian May 21: Capitalism & its Critics May 22: Rebecca Solnit; Yiyun Li >74 featherbear:
Liberties Virginia Woolf >98 featherbear:
WaPo May 21: world building in sf/fantasy May 22: Nicole Krauss at graduation regarding reading, writing & freedom >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
The Critic UK May 22: Roman ruins >71 featherbear:
Guardian May 21: Capitalism & its Critics May 22: Rebecca Solnit; Yiyun Li >74 featherbear:
Liberties Virginia Woolf >98 featherbear:
WaPo May 21: world building in sf/fantasy May 22: Nicole Krauss at graduation regarding reading, writing & freedom >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
111featherbear
May 23 2025:
Atlantic May 19: Hanna Rosin review Bechdel's Spent >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 8: Iceland memoir review I overlooked May 20: Heart Lamp wins Booker Prize May 22: historical novel about Florence Nightingale May 23: podcaster's reading inspirations; Stella prize to Theory & Practice; interview w/Book Prize winner >74 featherbear:
LARB May 22: Sophie Gilbert on pop culture's effect on girls May 23: Ed Simon on Ross Douthat's apologetic for religion >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 23: nonfiction apocalypse books >78 featherbear:
NYT May 23: murder in Connecticut; children's book art >70 featherbear:
Public Books May 22: "A new book demonstrates that the skills taught and honed in the humanities are of vital importance to the defense of democracy" by the CIA >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 20: summer reading lists generated by AI; Heart Lamp wins Booker May 22: Susan Choi's new novel Flashlight May 23: 2 books on the natural history of rivers >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
Atlantic May 19: Hanna Rosin review Bechdel's Spent >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 8: Iceland memoir review I overlooked May 20: Heart Lamp wins Booker Prize May 22: historical novel about Florence Nightingale May 23: podcaster's reading inspirations; Stella prize to Theory & Practice; interview w/Book Prize winner >74 featherbear:
LARB May 22: Sophie Gilbert on pop culture's effect on girls May 23: Ed Simon on Ross Douthat's apologetic for religion >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 23: nonfiction apocalypse books >78 featherbear:
NYT May 23: murder in Connecticut; children's book art >70 featherbear:
Public Books May 22: "A new book demonstrates that the skills taught and honed in the humanities are of vital importance to the defense of democracy" by the CIA >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 20: summer reading lists generated by AI; Heart Lamp wins Booker May 22: Susan Choi's new novel Flashlight May 23: 2 books on the natural history of rivers >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
112featherbear
Boston Review May 2025
Sandeep Vaheesan. 05/22/2025: The Real Path to Abundance. Review of: Abundance / Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson.
Benjamin Balthaser. 05/27/2025: The Outcasts of Zion: The manufacturing of Jewish Zionist consensus lies at the heart of American liberalism’s identity crisis. Review of: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning / Peter Beinart -- The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism / Marjorie N. Feld -- Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World / Naomi Klein -- Unsettled: Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine / Oren Kroll-Zeldin -- Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948–1978 / Geoffrey Levin.
Sandeep Vaheesan. 05/22/2025: The Real Path to Abundance. Review of: Abundance / Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson.
Benjamin Balthaser. 05/27/2025: The Outcasts of Zion: The manufacturing of Jewish Zionist consensus lies at the heart of American liberalism’s identity crisis. Review of: Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning / Peter Beinart -- The Threshold of Dissent: A History of American Jewish Critics of Zionism / Marjorie N. Feld -- Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World / Naomi Klein -- Unsettled: Jews and the Movement for Justice in Palestine / Oren Kroll-Zeldin -- Our Palestine Question: Israel and American Jewish Dissent, 1948–1978 / Geoffrey Levin.
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May 24 updates:
LARB May 24: the grammar of angels >69 featherbear:
WaPo May 22: teen movies >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index: >63 featherbear:
LARB May 24: the grammar of angels >69 featherbear:
WaPo May 22: teen movies >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index: >63 featherbear:
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Susan Brownmiller, 1935-2025
Katharine Q. Seelye. NYT, 05/24/2025, upd 05/25: Susan Brownmiller, Who Reshaped Views About Rape, Dies at 90.
"Susan Brownmiller, the feminist author, journalist and activist whose book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape helped define the modern view of rape, debunking it as an act of passion and reframing it as a crime of power and violence, died on Saturday in New York. She was 90.
"“Against Our Will,” published in 1975, was translated into a dozen languages and ranked by the New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
"The book’s publication — along with real-time reports of mass rape in war-ravaged Bangladesh — joined a tide of events that were reshaping society’s attitude toward rape.
"Numerous rape-crisis centers were opened, self-defense classes gained new popularity, and several states rewrote their laws to make it easier to prosecute rapists. Rape within marriage became a crime. Many jurisdictions abolished the “corroborating witness rule,” which required the testimony of bystanders for a rape conviction. (The woman herself was not necessarily considered believable.) Several states passed rape shield laws, which prevented people’s sexual history from being used against them in court.
"But it was the personal feminist ideology suffusing “Against Our Will” that catapulted the book to the top of best-seller lists and simultaneously infuriated critics, on the left as well as the right, who called it an anti-male polemic.
"The book’s most famous — and disputed — assertion was this: Rape “is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” (Italics hers.)
"Ms. Brownmiller became a vociferous opponent of the multi-billion-dollar pornography industry. She believed strongly that its dehumanization of women was a major contributor to sexual violence.
"She devoted her life to writing and taught at Pace University into her 80s. She wrote scores of magazine articles and half a dozen books, starting in 1970 with a children’s book about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Her 1984 book, “Femininity,” deconstructed the meaning of that word.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/brownmillersusan
Matt Schudel. WaPo, 05/25/2025: Susan Brownmiller, feminist author of ‘Against Our Will,’ dies at 90. "Her influential 1975 book transformed the social and legal understanding of rape as a tool of violence and power."
Katharine Q. Seelye. NYT, 05/24/2025, upd 05/25: Susan Brownmiller, Who Reshaped Views About Rape, Dies at 90.
"Susan Brownmiller, the feminist author, journalist and activist whose book “Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape helped define the modern view of rape, debunking it as an act of passion and reframing it as a crime of power and violence, died on Saturday in New York. She was 90.
"“Against Our Will,” published in 1975, was translated into a dozen languages and ranked by the New York Public Library as one of the 100 most important books of the 20th century.
"The book’s publication — along with real-time reports of mass rape in war-ravaged Bangladesh — joined a tide of events that were reshaping society’s attitude toward rape.
"Numerous rape-crisis centers were opened, self-defense classes gained new popularity, and several states rewrote their laws to make it easier to prosecute rapists. Rape within marriage became a crime. Many jurisdictions abolished the “corroborating witness rule,” which required the testimony of bystanders for a rape conviction. (The woman herself was not necessarily considered believable.) Several states passed rape shield laws, which prevented people’s sexual history from being used against them in court.
"But it was the personal feminist ideology suffusing “Against Our Will” that catapulted the book to the top of best-seller lists and simultaneously infuriated critics, on the left as well as the right, who called it an anti-male polemic.
"The book’s most famous — and disputed — assertion was this: Rape “is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear.” (Italics hers.)
"Ms. Brownmiller became a vociferous opponent of the multi-billion-dollar pornography industry. She believed strongly that its dehumanization of women was a major contributor to sexual violence.
"She devoted her life to writing and taught at Pace University into her 80s. She wrote scores of magazine articles and half a dozen books, starting in 1970 with a children’s book about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress. Her 1984 book, “Femininity,” deconstructed the meaning of that word.
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/brownmillersusan
Matt Schudel. WaPo, 05/25/2025: Susan Brownmiller, feminist author of ‘Against Our Will,’ dies at 90. "Her influential 1975 book transformed the social and legal understanding of rape as a tool of violence and power."
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May 25 updates:
The Critic (UK) May 24: railway maps >71 featherbear:
LARB May 24: first & last words >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 25: broadcasts against fascism >67 featherbear:
NYT May 21: sinister doorman novel May 25: Terry Pratchett list; '80's & religion; Sam Friedman's classes in journalism writing >70 featherbear:
Quillette May 25: AI & literary criticism >97 featherbear:
WaPo May 25: Warhol's muses >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index: >63 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 24: railway maps >71 featherbear:
LARB May 24: first & last words >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 25: broadcasts against fascism >67 featherbear:
NYT May 21: sinister doorman novel May 25: Terry Pratchett list; '80's & religion; Sam Friedman's classes in journalism writing >70 featherbear:
Quillette May 25: AI & literary criticism >97 featherbear:
WaPo May 25: Warhol's muses >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index: >63 featherbear:
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Nick Ripatrazone. Metropolitan Review, 05/21/2025: The Art of the Critic: On Henry James and the State of Literary Criticism.
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JSTOR Daily May 2025
Sara Ivry. 05/07/2025: Expanding the Possibilities for Preservability. "A new tool from NYU Libraries helps authors, publishers, and preservation specialists assess the preservability of evolving digital scholarship."
Jenny Noyce. 05/14/2025: A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway. Regarding: Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf.
Jenny Noyce. 05/14/2025: The Bloomsbury Group: A Reading List. "In 1905, a group of writers and painters gathered in a London home and began a conversation on politics, love, sex, and art that lasted decades."
Tim Brinkhof. 05/21/2025: Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim. Regarding From Rupture to Refuge: The Coordinates of Contemporary Refugee Narratives / Peter Sloane (Liverpool University Press).
Sara Ivry. 05/07/2025: Expanding the Possibilities for Preservability. "A new tool from NYU Libraries helps authors, publishers, and preservation specialists assess the preservability of evolving digital scholarship."
Jenny Noyce. 05/14/2025: A Hundred Years of Mrs. Dalloway. Regarding: Mrs. Dalloway / Virginia Woolf.
Jenny Noyce. 05/14/2025: The Bloomsbury Group: A Reading List. "In 1905, a group of writers and painters gathered in a London home and began a conversation on politics, love, sex, and art that lasted decades."
Tim Brinkhof. 05/21/2025: Refugee Lit Stakes Its Worthy Claim. Regarding From Rupture to Refuge: The Coordinates of Contemporary Refugee Narratives / Peter Sloane (Liverpool University Press).
118featherbear
May 26 updates:
Guardian May 26: the ultrarich; Gertrude Stein bio >74 featherbear:
LARB May 26: green capitalism in speculative fiction >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 26: Iranian prison >67 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
Guardian May 26: the ultrarich; Gertrude Stein bio >74 featherbear:
LARB May 26: green capitalism in speculative fiction >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 26: Iranian prison >67 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
119featherbear
May 27 updates:
NYT May 27: new Stephen King novel; The Bombshell >70 featherbear:
May index: >63 featherbear:
NYT May 27: new Stephen King novel; The Bombshell >70 featherbear:
May index: >63 featherbear:
120featherbear
Matthew Gault. 404 media, 05/23/2025: Authors Are Accidentally Leaving AI Prompts In their Novels.
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TLS May 30, 2025|No. 6374
Featured
David Carpenter & Nicholas Vincent. Charter accounting: How an original Magna Carta was uncovered in Harvard. (Essay)
Edward Chancellor. King Dollar’s shaky throne and fall: Can the world’s dominant currency survive Donald Trump? Review of: DOLLARS AND DOMINION: US bankers and the making of a superpower / Mary Bridges -- KING DOLLAR: The past and future of the world’s dominant currency / Paul Blustein -- OUR DOLLAR, YOUR PROBLEM: An insider’s view of seven turbulent decades of global finance, and the road ahead / Kenneth Rogoff.
Claire Lowden. Bread and corn: Ocean Vuong takes on the Big American Novel. Review of: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS / Ocean Vuong.
‘Literature is the antidote to numbness’: What questions should today’s writers and artists be asking? Responses from authors at the Hay Festival and the TLS. Survey says ...
Mary Beard. The history of food tasters: from Nero to now. From the TLS current issue landing page.
Literature & Linguistics
Jacqueline Bannerjee. Word and image: How 'The Pickwick Papers' revolutionized Victorian publishing. Review of: FICTION ON THE PAGE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MAGAZINES / Maria Damkjær (Oxford University Press) -- THE VICTORIAN MIND’S EYE: Reading literature in an age of illustration / Julia Thomas (Oxford University Press).
Jonathan Taylor. Going viral: Poetry and criticism are forever entwined. Review of: SOMETHING SPEAKS TO ME: Where criticism begins / Michel Chaouli.
Anna Aslanyan. Leningrad to London: Anthony Burgess’s novels set in Soviet and Shakespearean time. Review of: HONEY FOR THE BEARS: an Anglo-Russian comedy / Anthony Burgess -- NOTHING LIKE THE SUN: A story of Shakespeare’s love-life / Anthony Burgess.
Suzi Feay. Kinga for a day: The gleeful sentences and zesty plotting of a true original. Review of: A NEW NEW ME / Helen Oyeyemi.
Rohan Maitzen. That is not it at all: Of time, reality and morality. Review of: THE BOOK OF RECORDS / Madeleine Thien.
In Brief Review of: EDITING ARCHIPELAGIC SHAKESPEARE / Rory Loughnane and Willy Maley (Cambridge University Press). "Loughnane and Maley focus on the Atlantic archipelago: they consider Irish, Scottish and Welsh characters and places in Shakespeare’s plays, and how he named and spelt them."
In Brief Review of: LINGUAPHILE: A life of language love / Julie Sedivy.
In Brief Review of: SHE'S ALWAYS HUNGRY / Eliza Clark.
In Brief Review of: PINK DUST / Ron Padgett.
In Brief Review of: FIRE READY / Jane Rogers (Comma Press; environment themed stories).
Arts
Michael Caines. Ibsenish inclinations: A new production of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘very Victorian problem play.’ Review of George Bernard Shaw's MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION, Garrick Theatre, London, until August 16.
Judith Flanders. Home is where the art is: Do Ho Suh’s interrogation of memory. Review of the exhibition DO HO SUH: Walk the House, Tate Modern, London, until October 19 & the accompanying catalog DO HO SUH: Walk the House: The Genesis Exhibition / Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva, editors (Tate Publishing).
Science & Technology
Marlene Zuk. Darwin’s strangest idea: The part played by beauty in sexual selection. Review of: BIRDS, SEX AND BEAUTY: The extraordinary implications of Charles Darwin’s strangest idea / Matt Ridley.
Raymond Tallis. Life after death?: What happens when the human brain shuts down. Review of: Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death / Sam Parnia.
Richard Dunn. The final frontier: Two contrasting visions of humanity’s future in space. Review of: OUT OF THIS WORLD AND INTO THE NEXT: Notes from a physicist on space exploration / Adriana Marais -- STARBOUND: Interstellar travel and the limits of the possible / Ed Regis.
Philosophy
Oren Margolis. Gazing into the abyss: A Renaissance philosopher who rejected reason. Review of: THE GRAMMAR OF ANGELS: A search for the magical powers of sublime language / Edward Wilson-Lee (William Collins).
Religion
Irina Dumitrescu. Signs of greatness: Childhood precocity and the saints. (Essay)
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Mary C. Flannery. A fine state of affairs: The interplay of life and literature in medieval romance. Review of: MEDIEVAL LOVE LETTERS: A critical anthology / Myra Stokes and Ad Putter, editors (Cambridge University Press).
Neil Price. Gold for books: Rethinking the Viking invasion through archaelology. Review of: LIFE IN THE VIKING GREAT ARMY: Raiders, traders, and settlers / Dawn M. Hadley and Julian D. Richards.
Henry Hitchings. Bitcoin’s creator: The hunt for the elusive architect of crypto-currrency. Review of: THE MYSTERIOUS MR NAKAMOTO: A fifteen-year quest to unmask the secret genius behind crypto / Benjamin Wallace.
Libby Purves. The fashion Hitler of London: The rebellious charm and cruelty of a high-society mischief maker. Review of: LADY PAMELA BERRY: Passion, politics and power / Harriet Cullen.
In Brief Review of: FREEWHEELING: Essays on cycling.
Featured
David Carpenter & Nicholas Vincent. Charter accounting: How an original Magna Carta was uncovered in Harvard. (Essay)
Edward Chancellor. King Dollar’s shaky throne and fall: Can the world’s dominant currency survive Donald Trump? Review of: DOLLARS AND DOMINION: US bankers and the making of a superpower / Mary Bridges -- KING DOLLAR: The past and future of the world’s dominant currency / Paul Blustein -- OUR DOLLAR, YOUR PROBLEM: An insider’s view of seven turbulent decades of global finance, and the road ahead / Kenneth Rogoff.
Claire Lowden. Bread and corn: Ocean Vuong takes on the Big American Novel. Review of: THE EMPEROR OF GLADNESS / Ocean Vuong.
‘Literature is the antidote to numbness’: What questions should today’s writers and artists be asking? Responses from authors at the Hay Festival and the TLS. Survey says ...
Mary Beard. The history of food tasters: from Nero to now. From the TLS current issue landing page.
Literature & Linguistics
Jacqueline Bannerjee. Word and image: How 'The Pickwick Papers' revolutionized Victorian publishing. Review of: FICTION ON THE PAGE IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY MAGAZINES / Maria Damkjær (Oxford University Press) -- THE VICTORIAN MIND’S EYE: Reading literature in an age of illustration / Julia Thomas (Oxford University Press).
Jonathan Taylor. Going viral: Poetry and criticism are forever entwined. Review of: SOMETHING SPEAKS TO ME: Where criticism begins / Michel Chaouli.
Anna Aslanyan. Leningrad to London: Anthony Burgess’s novels set in Soviet and Shakespearean time. Review of: HONEY FOR THE BEARS: an Anglo-Russian comedy / Anthony Burgess -- NOTHING LIKE THE SUN: A story of Shakespeare’s love-life / Anthony Burgess.
Suzi Feay. Kinga for a day: The gleeful sentences and zesty plotting of a true original. Review of: A NEW NEW ME / Helen Oyeyemi.
Rohan Maitzen. That is not it at all: Of time, reality and morality. Review of: THE BOOK OF RECORDS / Madeleine Thien.
In Brief Review of: EDITING ARCHIPELAGIC SHAKESPEARE / Rory Loughnane and Willy Maley (Cambridge University Press). "Loughnane and Maley focus on the Atlantic archipelago: they consider Irish, Scottish and Welsh characters and places in Shakespeare’s plays, and how he named and spelt them."
In Brief Review of: LINGUAPHILE: A life of language love / Julie Sedivy.
In Brief Review of: SHE'S ALWAYS HUNGRY / Eliza Clark.
In Brief Review of: PINK DUST / Ron Padgett.
In Brief Review of: FIRE READY / Jane Rogers (Comma Press; environment themed stories).
Arts
Michael Caines. Ibsenish inclinations: A new production of George Bernard Shaw’s ‘very Victorian problem play.’ Review of George Bernard Shaw's MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION, Garrick Theatre, London, until August 16.
Judith Flanders. Home is where the art is: Do Ho Suh’s interrogation of memory. Review of the exhibition DO HO SUH: Walk the House, Tate Modern, London, until October 19 & the accompanying catalog DO HO SUH: Walk the House: The Genesis Exhibition / Nabila Abdel Nabi and Dina Akhmadeeva, editors (Tate Publishing).
Science & Technology
Marlene Zuk. Darwin’s strangest idea: The part played by beauty in sexual selection. Review of: BIRDS, SEX AND BEAUTY: The extraordinary implications of Charles Darwin’s strangest idea / Matt Ridley.
Raymond Tallis. Life after death?: What happens when the human brain shuts down. Review of: Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death / Sam Parnia.
Richard Dunn. The final frontier: Two contrasting visions of humanity’s future in space. Review of: OUT OF THIS WORLD AND INTO THE NEXT: Notes from a physicist on space exploration / Adriana Marais -- STARBOUND: Interstellar travel and the limits of the possible / Ed Regis.
Philosophy
Oren Margolis. Gazing into the abyss: A Renaissance philosopher who rejected reason. Review of: THE GRAMMAR OF ANGELS: A search for the magical powers of sublime language / Edward Wilson-Lee (William Collins).
Religion
Irina Dumitrescu. Signs of greatness: Childhood precocity and the saints. (Essay)
History, Politics, Society, & Culture
Mary C. Flannery. A fine state of affairs: The interplay of life and literature in medieval romance. Review of: MEDIEVAL LOVE LETTERS: A critical anthology / Myra Stokes and Ad Putter, editors (Cambridge University Press).
Neil Price. Gold for books: Rethinking the Viking invasion through archaelology. Review of: LIFE IN THE VIKING GREAT ARMY: Raiders, traders, and settlers / Dawn M. Hadley and Julian D. Richards.
Henry Hitchings. Bitcoin’s creator: The hunt for the elusive architect of crypto-currrency. Review of: THE MYSTERIOUS MR NAKAMOTO: A fifteen-year quest to unmask the secret genius behind crypto / Benjamin Wallace.
Libby Purves. The fashion Hitler of London: The rebellious charm and cruelty of a high-society mischief maker. Review of: LADY PAMELA BERRY: Passion, politics and power / Harriet Cullen.
In Brief Review of: FREEWHEELING: Essays on cycling.
122featherbear
May 28 updates:
Boston Review May 27: liberals & Zionism >112 featherbear:
LARB May 27: Marx in America; book art May 28: living outside literature >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 28: Brothers Grimm & academic freedom >78 featherbear:
New Yorker May 27: WF Buckley bio May 28: why some ideas don't go viral >67 featherbear:
NYT May 28: Gauguin bio >70 featherbear:
Public Books May 27: 3 books on technology >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 28: 2 books about the Beatles >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index >63 featherbear:
Boston Review May 27: liberals & Zionism >112 featherbear:
LARB May 27: Marx in America; book art May 28: living outside literature >69 featherbear:
LitHub May 28: Brothers Grimm & academic freedom >78 featherbear:
New Yorker May 27: WF Buckley bio May 28: why some ideas don't go viral >67 featherbear:
NYT May 28: Gauguin bio >70 featherbear:
Public Books May 27: 3 books on technology >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 28: 2 books about the Beatles >66 featherbear:
May 2025 index >63 featherbear:
123featherbear
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, 1938-2025
Wedaeli Chibelushi. BBC News, 05/28/2025: Giant of African literature Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o dies aged 87.
Alan Cowell. NYT, 05/28/2025: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writer Who Condemned Colonists and Elites, Dies at 87. "Mr. Ngugi composed the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language on prison toilet paper while being held by Kenyan authorities. He spent many prolific years in exile."
"Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in his native Kenya as much as the misdoings of the postcolonial elite, and who led a passionate campaign for African authors to eschew the languages of foreign occupiers, died on Wednesday in a hospital in Buford, Ga. He was 87.
"Often tipped as a potential Nobel laureate, Mr. Ngugi (pronounced GOO-ghee) spent many years in exile to avoid the wrath of a government he criticized. ... His work inspired successive generations of African writers along with contemporaries such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, both of Nigeria.
"His canon drew enthusiastic praise, including for his debut novel, “Weep Not, Child,” in 1964. It is the story of Kenyan brothers whose family must confront the challenges of the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The book has been described as the first major novel in English by an East African author.
"By contrast, “Devil on the Cross” in 1980, composed in his native tongue as “Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini,” was regarded as the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language, spoken by the country’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu. The book, about thieves who vie for supremacy by stealing from the people, sent him on a career writing in his own language and subsequently translating his work into English.
"He wrote “Devil on the Cross” on prison toilet paper while detained by Kenyan authorities for a year without trial because of a play he wrote.
"While Mr. Ngugi was educated at Kenya’s British-run Alliance High School — a prestigious institution designed to mold an African elite in the image of the colonizers — other members of his family were caught up in the Mau Mau uprising against those same outsiders. A brother became a freedom fighter against the British, and another sibling was shot to death.
"When Mr. Ngugi returned home for the first time from Alliance, he found that his home settlement had been destroyed, its population herded into a so-called protected village set up by the British authorities to cement control of their colonial subjects. ... The experience of detention persuaded him to seek exile in 1982, first in Britain and later in the United States.
"But on his return to Kenya in 2004, he and his family were the victims of a nightmarish attack. Intruders broke into an apartment where they were staying, attacked Mr. Ngugi and raped Njeeri, his wife. The episode was likely rooted in vengeance by his foes, but it also reflecting the criminality that had flourished during Kenya’s corrupt independence.
"In 1986, he published a collection of essays titled “Decolonizing the Mind,” which traced what he depicted as a corrosive colonial intent to supplant Indigenous languages with the language of the occupier so as to seal the mental subjugation of the colonized.
"Mr. Ngugi went by his Western baptismal name, James Ngugi, until after the publication of “A Grain of Wheat” in 1967. By 1970 he had adopted the name Ngugi wa Thiong’o as an expression of his African heritage and identity, in line with his decision to write only in his native language. He translated most of his work from Gikuyu into English, reaching a much broader audience.
"With “Wizard of the Crow,” published in English in 2006 and set in a fictional African land called Aburiria, Jeff Turrentine said in a review in The Times, Mr. Ngugi “has flown over the entire African continent and sniffed out all of the foul stenches rising high into the air.” But “from that altitude he can also see a more hopeful sign: large masses of people coming together, sharing triumphant stories and casting spells.”
Other publications include his memoir Birth of a Dream Weaver & Petals of Blood.
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 05/30/2025: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kenyan writer who probed colonial shadows, dies at 87. "One of the most influential African writers of his generation, Mr. Ngugi’s works grappled with the weight of colonial history and contemporary abuses."
Ben Okri. Guardian, 05/30/2025: ‘In his company you could not be lazy’: remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong.’ "A giant of African literature whose best works existed between the political and the personal, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was warm, funny and friendly – and liked to bet on my pool game."
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/thiongongugiwa
Wedaeli Chibelushi. BBC News, 05/28/2025: Giant of African literature Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o dies aged 87.
Alan Cowell. NYT, 05/28/2025: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writer Who Condemned Colonists and Elites, Dies at 87. "Mr. Ngugi composed the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language on prison toilet paper while being held by Kenyan authorities. He spent many prolific years in exile."
"Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a groundbreaking novelist, playwright and memoirist whose writings explored the iniquities and ambiguities of colonialism in his native Kenya as much as the misdoings of the postcolonial elite, and who led a passionate campaign for African authors to eschew the languages of foreign occupiers, died on Wednesday in a hospital in Buford, Ga. He was 87.
"Often tipped as a potential Nobel laureate, Mr. Ngugi (pronounced GOO-ghee) spent many years in exile to avoid the wrath of a government he criticized. ... His work inspired successive generations of African writers along with contemporaries such as Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka, both of Nigeria.
"His canon drew enthusiastic praise, including for his debut novel, “Weep Not, Child,” in 1964. It is the story of Kenyan brothers whose family must confront the challenges of the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The book has been described as the first major novel in English by an East African author.
"By contrast, “Devil on the Cross” in 1980, composed in his native tongue as “Caitaani Mutharaba-Ini,” was regarded as the first modern novel in the Gikuyu language, spoken by the country’s largest ethnic group, the Kikuyu. The book, about thieves who vie for supremacy by stealing from the people, sent him on a career writing in his own language and subsequently translating his work into English.
"He wrote “Devil on the Cross” on prison toilet paper while detained by Kenyan authorities for a year without trial because of a play he wrote.
"While Mr. Ngugi was educated at Kenya’s British-run Alliance High School — a prestigious institution designed to mold an African elite in the image of the colonizers — other members of his family were caught up in the Mau Mau uprising against those same outsiders. A brother became a freedom fighter against the British, and another sibling was shot to death.
"When Mr. Ngugi returned home for the first time from Alliance, he found that his home settlement had been destroyed, its population herded into a so-called protected village set up by the British authorities to cement control of their colonial subjects. ... The experience of detention persuaded him to seek exile in 1982, first in Britain and later in the United States.
"But on his return to Kenya in 2004, he and his family were the victims of a nightmarish attack. Intruders broke into an apartment where they were staying, attacked Mr. Ngugi and raped Njeeri, his wife. The episode was likely rooted in vengeance by his foes, but it also reflecting the criminality that had flourished during Kenya’s corrupt independence.
"In 1986, he published a collection of essays titled “Decolonizing the Mind,” which traced what he depicted as a corrosive colonial intent to supplant Indigenous languages with the language of the occupier so as to seal the mental subjugation of the colonized.
"Mr. Ngugi went by his Western baptismal name, James Ngugi, until after the publication of “A Grain of Wheat” in 1967. By 1970 he had adopted the name Ngugi wa Thiong’o as an expression of his African heritage and identity, in line with his decision to write only in his native language. He translated most of his work from Gikuyu into English, reaching a much broader audience.
"With “Wizard of the Crow,” published in English in 2006 and set in a fictional African land called Aburiria, Jeff Turrentine said in a review in The Times, Mr. Ngugi “has flown over the entire African continent and sniffed out all of the foul stenches rising high into the air.” But “from that altitude he can also see a more hopeful sign: large masses of people coming together, sharing triumphant stories and casting spells.”
Other publications include his memoir Birth of a Dream Weaver & Petals of Blood.
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 05/30/2025: Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Kenyan writer who probed colonial shadows, dies at 87. "One of the most influential African writers of his generation, Mr. Ngugi’s works grappled with the weight of colonial history and contemporary abuses."
Ben Okri. Guardian, 05/30/2025: ‘In his company you could not be lazy’: remembering my friend Ngũgĩ wa Thiong.’ "A giant of African literature whose best works existed between the political and the personal, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o was warm, funny and friendly – and liked to bet on my pool game."
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/thiongongugiwa
124featherbear
May 29 updates:
The Critic (UK) May 29: Israel >71 featherbear:
LARB May 29: borderlands of the East >69 featherbear:
Public Books May 29: 2 novels influenced by Chekhov >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 28: Molly Jong-Fast memoir May 29: the 80s & the culture war >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) May 29: Israel >71 featherbear:
LARB May 29: borderlands of the East >69 featherbear:
Public Books May 29: 2 novels influenced by Chekhov >81 featherbear:
WaPo May 28: Molly Jong-Fast memoir May 29: the 80s & the culture war >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
125featherbear
May 30 2025 updates:
Atlantic May 29: Wellness book's influence >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 30: recommended new translations; historical romance >74 featherbear:
LARB May 30: East Asia in WWII >69 featherbear:
NYT May 24: separated Chinese twins (upd 05/28) May 30: spinach king; library on the US/Canada border >70 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
Atlantic May 29: Wellness book's influence >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 30: recommended new translations; historical romance >74 featherbear:
LARB May 30: East Asia in WWII >69 featherbear:
NYT May 24: separated Chinese twins (upd 05/28) May 30: spinach king; library on the US/Canada border >70 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
126featherbear
May 31 updates:
Atlantic May 30: Prideaux's bio of Paul Gauguin >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 29: the Acid Queen May 31: do we need more male novelists? >74 featherbear:
LARB May 30: modern relevance of Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon May 31: short fiction by Yuki Tanaka >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 31: regarding Austen's Northanger Abbey >67 featherbear:
NYT May 31: more on Molly Jong-Fast's memoir of her mother Erica Jong; a clam's eye view >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 31: Library of Congress; interview regarding a new bio of gay activist Marsha Johnson >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
Atlantic May 30: Prideaux's bio of Paul Gauguin >77 featherbear:
Guardian May 29: the Acid Queen May 31: do we need more male novelists? >74 featherbear:
LARB May 30: modern relevance of Marx's 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon May 31: short fiction by Yuki Tanaka >69 featherbear:
New Yorker May 31: regarding Austen's Northanger Abbey >67 featherbear:
NYT May 31: more on Molly Jong-Fast's memoir of her mother Erica Jong; a clam's eye view >70 featherbear:
WaPo May 31: Library of Congress; interview regarding a new bio of gay activist Marsha Johnson >66 featherbear:
May index >63 featherbear:
127featherbear
Jeffrey Meyers. Salmagundi, 05/31/2025: A Smiling Public Man. Review of: The Letters of Seamus Heaney / Selected and edited by Christopher Reid.
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Anna Louie Sussman. WSJ, 05/23/2025: What Hot Dragon-Riders and Fornicating Faeries Say About What Women Want Now.
I don't have a sub but got in via shared link on https://www.aldaily.com/
I don't have a sub but got in via shared link on https://www.aldaily.com/
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William Boyle. crimereads.com, 05/30/2025: William Boyle on Jim Thompson’s 'The Getaway.' Anchor to: The Getaway / Jim Thompson.
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Index June 2025
404media >146 featherbear:
Aeon >170 featherbear:
Atlantic >136 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) >134 featherbear:
fivebooks.com (August 2021) >175 featherbear: -- (June 2025) >176 featherbear:
Guardian >137 featherbear:
Harper's >139 featherbear:
Hedgehog Review >167 featherbear:
LARB >141 featherbear:
Literary Review (UK) >152 featherbear:
LitHub >150 featherbear:
n+1 >153 featherbear:
New Yorker >155 featherbear:
Noema >154 featherbear:
NYRB June 12: >142 featherbear: -- June 26: >161 featherbear:
NYT >131 featherbear:
OY's substack >194 featherbear:
Paris Review >171 featherbear:
Persuasion >178 featherbear:
Public Books >149 featherbear:
Slate >202 featherbear:
Southwest Review >138 featherbear:
TLS June 6: >151 featherbear: -- June 13: >173 featherbear: -- June 20: >187 featherbear: -- June 27: >196 featherbear:
The Walrus >157 featherbear:
WaPo >132 featherbear:
Yale Review >177 featherbear:
404media >146 featherbear:
Aeon >170 featherbear:
Atlantic >136 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) >134 featherbear:
fivebooks.com (August 2021) >175 featherbear: -- (June 2025) >176 featherbear:
Guardian >137 featherbear:
Harper's >139 featherbear:
Hedgehog Review >167 featherbear:
LARB >141 featherbear:
Literary Review (UK) >152 featherbear:
LitHub >150 featherbear:
n+1 >153 featherbear:
New Yorker >155 featherbear:
Noema >154 featherbear:
NYRB June 12: >142 featherbear: -- June 26: >161 featherbear:
NYT >131 featherbear:
OY's substack >194 featherbear:
Paris Review >171 featherbear:
Persuasion >178 featherbear:
Public Books >149 featherbear:
Slate >202 featherbear:
Southwest Review >138 featherbear:
TLS June 6: >151 featherbear: -- June 13: >173 featherbear: -- June 20: >187 featherbear: -- June 27: >196 featherbear:
The Walrus >157 featherbear:
WaPo >132 featherbear:
Yale Review >177 featherbear:
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NYT June 2025
Randall Kennedy. 06/01/2025: A Soaring History of Mother Emanuel, the Church That Endured a Massacre. Review of: MOTHER EMANUEL: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church / Kevin Sack.
Dwight Garner. 06/02/2025: A Novel Highlights a Dark Korean History and a Shattered Family’s. Review of FLASHLIGHT / Susan Choi.
Richard Kreitner. 06/02/2025: Charles Sumner Was More Than Just a Guy Who Got Caned on the Senate Floor. Review of: CHARLES SUMNER: Conscience of a Nation / Zaakir Tameez.
Danez Smith. 06/03/2025: The Risky, Reality-Bending Thriller You Need This Summer. Review of: The Catch: A Novel / Yrsa Daley-Ward.
Margot Harrison. 06/03/2025: A Fantasy Novel Inspired By Real History, When U.S. Hotels Housed Nazis. Review of: THE LISTENERS: a novel / Maggie Stiefvater.
Safiya Sinclair. 06/03/2025: A Modern-Day Scheherazade Weaves Her Story of Motherhood, War and Exile. Review of: I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I’M HOME: A Memoir / Hala Alyan.
Ruth La Ferla. 06/03/2025: Who Was Kate Spade?: A new memoir by her closest friend sheds light on the woman behind the image. Regarding We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship With Kate Spade / Elyce Arons.
Jennifer Szalai. 06/04/2025: Britain’s Premier Nature Writer Cries Us a River. Review of: IS A RIVER ALIVE? / Robert Macfarlane.
Carl Swanson. 06/06/2025: A Chronicle of the Rich Getting Richer, Crasser and More Obscene. Review of: THE HAVES AND HAVE-YACHTS: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Abhishek Kaiker. 06/06/2025: Worried the World Is Falling Apart? That’s OK. It’s Happened Before.. "In “The Once and Future World Order,” by Amitav Acharya, and “The Golden Road,” by William Dalrymple, our best hope might be that history repeats itself."
Ted Widmer. 06/07/2025: John Hancock Was More Than Just a Pretty Signature. Review of: JOHN HANCOCK: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence / Willard Sterne Randall.
Joanna Biggs. 06/07/2025: A Major Writer Remembers the ‘Nonreading Family’ That Shaped Him. Review of: HOMEWORK: A Memoir / Geoff Dyer.
Hamilton Cain. 06/07/2025: A Witty Caper Starring Gun-Toting Christians in Rural Washington. Review of: SO FAR GONE / Jess Walter.
Timothy Egan. 06/08/2025: Serial Killers of the Pacific Northwest: Did Toxins Make Them Do It? Review of: MURDERLAND: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Kevin Sack. 06/08/2025: How a Hate Crime in a Southern City Foretold the Rise of the Far Right. Review of: CHARLOTTESVILLE: An American Story / Deborah Baker.
Benjamin P. Russell. 06/09/2025: Mafalda, Argentina’s Very Opinionated Cartoon Heroine, is Coming to America. "A collection of Quino’s translated works will provide new audiences a taste of the satirical comic compared to “Charlie Brown with socialism.”
Chanelle Benz. 06/10/2025: A Maestro of Crime Fiction Returns With a High-Octane Thriller. Review of: KING OF ASHES / S.A. Cosby.
Klara Feenstra. 06/10/2025: I Tried to Avoid Administrative Work. Writing a Novel Was a Poor Way to Do So.
Sarah Lyall. 06/11/2025: The Thrilling Evidence of Jane Austen’s Imagination: Spirited (and gossipy) letters and manuscripts at the Morgan Library and Museum puncture myths about the writer’s rise to literary fame."
Flávia Milhorance. The Book Nearly Died With Him in the Amazon. But the Story Endured. "Killed in the rainforest he hoped to help save, the journalist Dom Phillips left behind an unfinished manuscript. Those who knew him carried it forward." Regarding How to Save the Amazon: A Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers / Dom Phillips and contributors.
Danielle Friedman. 06/12/2025: Want to Start Weight Lifting? These Books Can Help. Recommended (note that the books are aimed at a female audience): A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting / Casey Johnston ("You’re interested in lifting as a way to feel more physically and emotionally resilient.") -- On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters / Bonnie Tsui ("You’re looking to find more meaning in your workouts.") -- Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives / Anne Marie Chaker (Avery) ("You’re intrigued by the discipline, mental benefits and aesthetics of bodybuilding").
Parul Sehgal. 06/13/2025: Can You Ever Really Know a Person? Biographers Keep Trying. "Each age has its own way of drawing the arc of a human life. Ours is concerned with its unpredictability."
Owen King. 06/17/2025: A Prep School Predator Haunts Joyce Carol Oates’s New Novel. Review of: Fox: A Novel / Joyce Carol Oates.
Joumana Khatib. 06/17/2025: A Swedish Novelist Hits New York, With ‘Permission to Be More Wild.’ Profile of Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri, with regard to his latest: The Sisters: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Martha Southgate. 06/17/2025: You Know the Novelist. Now Meet Toni Morrison the Editor. Review of: TONI AT RANDOM: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship / Dana A. Williams.
Alexandra Jacobs. 06/17/2025: In ‘Not My Type,’ E. Jean Carroll Gets the Last Gab About the Trump Trials. Review of: NOT MY TYPE: One Woman vs. a President / E. Jean Carroll.
Leah Greenblatt. 06/18/2025: A Public Scuffle Over a 150-Pound Mutt Upends a Liberal’s Neat World. Review of: The Uproar: A Novel / Karim Dimechkie (Little, Brown).
Celia McGee. 06/18/2025: He Locked Away Wartime Memories Until His Granddaughter Opened the Pages. Profile of Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath regarding her new novel The Scrapbook: A Novel.
Kate Bolick. 06/18/2025: The Design Genius Who Gave American Women Pockets. Review of: CLAIRE MCCARDELL: The Designer Who Set Women Free / Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.
Anderson Tapper. 06/19/2025: The Cult Classic That Expanded What African Literature Could Be. "With folk traditions and sui generis prose, Amos Tutuola enthralled readers with his magic realist novel “The Palm-Wine Drinkard.”"
Evelyn McDonnell. 06/21/2025: When the New York Avant-Garde Started a Revolution. Review of: EVERYTHING IS NOW: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde — Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop / J. Hoberman.
Holly Bass. 06/21/2025: For Black Women, Life in America Has Always Been a Crossroads. Review of: MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: Essays & Writings / Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.
Alexandra Jacobs. 06/22/2025: ‘The Sisters’ Turns a Family Mystery Into a Transnational Tour de Force. Review of: THE SISTERS: a novel / Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux) (see also 6/17 profile of Khemiri above)
Rob Doyle. 06/23/2025: Goodbye to Berlin: New Novels Recall a City’s ‘Poor but Sexy’ Heyday. (Essay)
Nina La Cour. 06/23/2025: This Bighearted Novel Is an Ode to Teenage Mothers. Review of: THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG / Leila Mottley.
Lauren Groff. 06/27/2025: Jane Austen’s Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood. "“Mansfield Park” continues to complicate the writer’s legacy 250 years after her birth. Lauren Groff explains how the novel’s dark themes and complex ironies help keep Austen weird."
Elisabeth Egan. 06/29/2025: How the Million-Selling ‘All the Colors of Dark’ Brought Its Author Peace.
Randall Kennedy. 06/01/2025: A Soaring History of Mother Emanuel, the Church That Endured a Massacre. Review of: MOTHER EMANUEL: Two Centuries of Race, Resistance, and Forgiveness in One Charleston Church / Kevin Sack.
Dwight Garner. 06/02/2025: A Novel Highlights a Dark Korean History and a Shattered Family’s. Review of FLASHLIGHT / Susan Choi.
Richard Kreitner. 06/02/2025: Charles Sumner Was More Than Just a Guy Who Got Caned on the Senate Floor. Review of: CHARLES SUMNER: Conscience of a Nation / Zaakir Tameez.
Danez Smith. 06/03/2025: The Risky, Reality-Bending Thriller You Need This Summer. Review of: The Catch: A Novel / Yrsa Daley-Ward.
Margot Harrison. 06/03/2025: A Fantasy Novel Inspired By Real History, When U.S. Hotels Housed Nazis. Review of: THE LISTENERS: a novel / Maggie Stiefvater.
Safiya Sinclair. 06/03/2025: A Modern-Day Scheherazade Weaves Her Story of Motherhood, War and Exile. Review of: I’LL TELL YOU WHEN I’M HOME: A Memoir / Hala Alyan.
Ruth La Ferla. 06/03/2025: Who Was Kate Spade?: A new memoir by her closest friend sheds light on the woman behind the image. Regarding We Might Just Make It After All: My Best Friendship With Kate Spade / Elyce Arons.
Jennifer Szalai. 06/04/2025: Britain’s Premier Nature Writer Cries Us a River. Review of: IS A RIVER ALIVE? / Robert Macfarlane.
Carl Swanson. 06/06/2025: A Chronicle of the Rich Getting Richer, Crasser and More Obscene. Review of: THE HAVES AND HAVE-YACHTS: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Abhishek Kaiker. 06/06/2025: Worried the World Is Falling Apart? That’s OK. It’s Happened Before.. "In “The Once and Future World Order,” by Amitav Acharya, and “The Golden Road,” by William Dalrymple, our best hope might be that history repeats itself."
Ted Widmer. 06/07/2025: John Hancock Was More Than Just a Pretty Signature. Review of: JOHN HANCOCK: First to Sign, First to Invest in America’s Independence / Willard Sterne Randall.
Joanna Biggs. 06/07/2025: A Major Writer Remembers the ‘Nonreading Family’ That Shaped Him. Review of: HOMEWORK: A Memoir / Geoff Dyer.
Hamilton Cain. 06/07/2025: A Witty Caper Starring Gun-Toting Christians in Rural Washington. Review of: SO FAR GONE / Jess Walter.
Timothy Egan. 06/08/2025: Serial Killers of the Pacific Northwest: Did Toxins Make Them Do It? Review of: MURDERLAND: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Kevin Sack. 06/08/2025: How a Hate Crime in a Southern City Foretold the Rise of the Far Right. Review of: CHARLOTTESVILLE: An American Story / Deborah Baker.
Benjamin P. Russell. 06/09/2025: Mafalda, Argentina’s Very Opinionated Cartoon Heroine, is Coming to America. "A collection of Quino’s translated works will provide new audiences a taste of the satirical comic compared to “Charlie Brown with socialism.”
Chanelle Benz. 06/10/2025: A Maestro of Crime Fiction Returns With a High-Octane Thriller. Review of: KING OF ASHES / S.A. Cosby.
Klara Feenstra. 06/10/2025: I Tried to Avoid Administrative Work. Writing a Novel Was a Poor Way to Do So.
Sarah Lyall. 06/11/2025: The Thrilling Evidence of Jane Austen’s Imagination: Spirited (and gossipy) letters and manuscripts at the Morgan Library and Museum puncture myths about the writer’s rise to literary fame."
Flávia Milhorance. The Book Nearly Died With Him in the Amazon. But the Story Endured. "Killed in the rainforest he hoped to help save, the journalist Dom Phillips left behind an unfinished manuscript. Those who knew him carried it forward." Regarding How to Save the Amazon: A Journalist’s Deadly Quest for Answers / Dom Phillips and contributors.
Danielle Friedman. 06/12/2025: Want to Start Weight Lifting? These Books Can Help. Recommended (note that the books are aimed at a female audience): A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting / Casey Johnston ("You’re interested in lifting as a way to feel more physically and emotionally resilient.") -- On Muscle: The Stuff That Moves Us and Why It Matters / Bonnie Tsui ("You’re looking to find more meaning in your workouts.") -- Lift: How Women Can Reclaim Their Physical Power and Transform Their Lives / Anne Marie Chaker (Avery) ("You’re intrigued by the discipline, mental benefits and aesthetics of bodybuilding").
Parul Sehgal. 06/13/2025: Can You Ever Really Know a Person? Biographers Keep Trying. "Each age has its own way of drawing the arc of a human life. Ours is concerned with its unpredictability."
Owen King. 06/17/2025: A Prep School Predator Haunts Joyce Carol Oates’s New Novel. Review of: Fox: A Novel / Joyce Carol Oates.
Joumana Khatib. 06/17/2025: A Swedish Novelist Hits New York, With ‘Permission to Be More Wild.’ Profile of Swedish author Jonas Hassen Khemiri, with regard to his latest: The Sisters: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux).
Martha Southgate. 06/17/2025: You Know the Novelist. Now Meet Toni Morrison the Editor. Review of: TONI AT RANDOM: The Iconic Writer’s Legendary Editorship / Dana A. Williams.
Alexandra Jacobs. 06/17/2025: In ‘Not My Type,’ E. Jean Carroll Gets the Last Gab About the Trump Trials. Review of: NOT MY TYPE: One Woman vs. a President / E. Jean Carroll.
Leah Greenblatt. 06/18/2025: A Public Scuffle Over a 150-Pound Mutt Upends a Liberal’s Neat World. Review of: The Uproar: A Novel / Karim Dimechkie (Little, Brown).
Celia McGee. 06/18/2025: He Locked Away Wartime Memories Until His Granddaughter Opened the Pages. Profile of Heather Clark, author of Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath regarding her new novel The Scrapbook: A Novel.
Kate Bolick. 06/18/2025: The Design Genius Who Gave American Women Pockets. Review of: CLAIRE MCCARDELL: The Designer Who Set Women Free / Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson.
Anderson Tapper. 06/19/2025: The Cult Classic That Expanded What African Literature Could Be. "With folk traditions and sui generis prose, Amos Tutuola enthralled readers with his magic realist novel “The Palm-Wine Drinkard.”"
Evelyn McDonnell. 06/21/2025: When the New York Avant-Garde Started a Revolution. Review of: EVERYTHING IS NOW: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde — Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop / J. Hoberman.
Holly Bass. 06/21/2025: For Black Women, Life in America Has Always Been a Crossroads. Review of: MISBEHAVING AT THE CROSSROADS: Essays & Writings / Honorée Fanonne Jeffers.
Alexandra Jacobs. 06/22/2025: ‘The Sisters’ Turns a Family Mystery Into a Transnational Tour de Force. Review of: THE SISTERS: a novel / Jonas Hassen Khemiri (Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux) (see also 6/17 profile of Khemiri above)
Rob Doyle. 06/23/2025: Goodbye to Berlin: New Novels Recall a City’s ‘Poor but Sexy’ Heyday. (Essay)
Nina La Cour. 06/23/2025: This Bighearted Novel Is an Ode to Teenage Mothers. Review of: THE GIRLS WHO GREW BIG / Leila Mottley.
Lauren Groff. 06/27/2025: Jane Austen’s Boldest Novel Is Also Her Least Understood. "“Mansfield Park” continues to complicate the writer’s legacy 250 years after her birth. Lauren Groff explains how the novel’s dark themes and complex ironies help keep Austen weird."
Elisabeth Egan. 06/29/2025: How the Million-Selling ‘All the Colors of Dark’ Brought Its Author Peace.
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WaPo June 2025
Frances Stead Stellars. 06/01/2025: How kind can a leader be? Jacinda Ardern makes the case for compassion. Review of: A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir / Jacinda Ardern.
S. Kirk Walsh. 06/03/2025: A playfully inventive novel set in Ukraine asks serious questions. Review of: Endling: A Novel / Maria Reva.
Kristen Millares Young. 06/03/2025: A writer gave up sex for a year and discovered pleasure. Review of: The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex / Melissa Febos.
Ron Charles. 06/03/2025: ‘The River Is Waiting’ is every parent’s nightmare. Review of: The River Is Waiting: A Novel / Wally Lamb.
Porter Shreve. 06/04/2025: A funny, moving look at mid-century life. Review of: My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy / Edward Hirsch. "Poet Edward Hirsch’s memoir explores his colorful upbringing in Chicago and Skokie, Illinois."
Dennis Duncan. 06/04/2025: Our languages have more in common than you might think. Review of: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global / Laura Spinney.
Maegan Vazquez. 06/04/2025: Karine Jean-Pierre leaves Democratic Party, pens book about ‘broken’ White House. "Former press secretary’s tome will publish in October, and its title is a nod to her recently announced departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent."
Mark Dery. 06/05/2025: Even dreams aren’t safe when fascism looms. Regarding the reissue of The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation / Charlotte Beradt; translator Damion Searls.
Courtney Tenz. 06/05/2025: A mother pays tribute to the sons she lost. Review of: Things in Nature Merely Grow / Yiyun Li.
Thomas Floyd. 06/06/2025: A producer of ‘Rent’ and ‘Hamilton’ dishes about his Broadway career. Review of: Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir / Jeffrey Seller.
Travis M. Andrews. 06/07/2025: America’s ‘spot news novelist’ takes on the Trump era from Spokane. Interview regarding So Far Gone: A Novel / Jess Walter.
Francine Prose. 06/07/2025: After 100 years, there’s still much to learn from ‘Mrs. Dalloway.’
Neely Tucker. 06/08/2025: S.A. Cosby isn’t letting up. Review of: King of Ashes: A Novel / S.A. Cosby.
Clare McHugh. 06/09/2025: ‘Days of Light’ dramatizes life within the Bloomsbury Group. Review of the novel Days of Light / Megan Hunter.
Charles Arrowsmith. 06/10/2025: ‘Great Black Hope’ proves Rob Franklin has something to say. Review of: Great Black Hope: A Novel / Rob Franklin.
Janine Joseph. 06/10/2025: Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change / Cristina Jiménez.
Allison Stewart. 06/11/2025: A flashback to the tabloid culture that made and broke Britney Spears. Review of: Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly / Jeff Weiss.
Ron Charles. 06/11/2025: ‘Bug Hollow’ perfectly captures the unpredictability of life. Review of: Bug Hollow: A Novel / Michelle Huneven.
Ty Burr. 06/11/2025: Desi Arnaz was so much more than his ‘I Love Lucy’ character. Review of: Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television / Todd S. Purdom.
Wendy Smith. 06/11/2025: Uncovering the Pacific Northwest’s violent history and toxic legacy. Review of: Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Carl Hoffman. 06/12/2025: The gritty, unglamorous truth about the antiheroes of the Wild West. Review of: The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild / Bryan Burrough.
Becca Rothfeld. 06/13/2025: ‘Plato and the Tyrant’ humanizes the famous philosopher. Review of: Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece / James Romm.
Michael Dirda. 06/13/2025: His biography of James Joyce was a masterpiece. Now he gets his due. Review of: Ellmann's Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker / Zachary Leader.
Kathleen Parker. 06/13/2025: This writer warned us about tyranny years ago. Will we listen now? Regarding the PBS documentary on Hannah Arendt.
Chris Klimek. 06/13/2025: ‘Collisions’ details the world-altering genius of Luis Alvarez: biography revisits the life and career of the Nobel laureate physicist. Review of: Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs / Alex Nevala-Lee.
Alexander Stern. 06/14/2025: This philosopher thinks we should embrace shame for the good of all. Review of: A Philosophy of Shame: A Revolutionary Emotion / Frédéric Gros; translator Andrew James Bliss.
Sheila McClear. 06/15/2025: Submersibles can be deadly. For some, that’s the appeal. Review of: Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines / Matthew Gavin Frank.
Abhrajyoti Chakraborty. 06/16/2025: In Tash Aw’s ‘The South,’ a man recalls a youthful love affair. Review of: The South: a novel / Tash Aw.
Alex Beam. 06/16/2025: ‘Joseph Smith’ is a clear-eyed biography of the Mormon founder. Review of: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet / John G. Turner.
Hamilton Cain. 06/17/2025: ‘Fulfillment’ is a splendid novel by a rising literary star. Review of: Fulfillment: A Novel / Lee Cole.
Becca Rothfeld. 06/18/2025: ‘The Haves and Have-Yachts’ mingles with the new aristocracy. Review of: The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Alexis Burling. 06/18/2025: A terrifying look at wildfires from the hotshots who fight them. Review of: When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World / Jordan Thomas -- Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West / Kelly Ramsey.
Karen Heller. 06/19/2025: A century ago, this designer set women free. And gave them pockets. Review of: Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free / Elizabeth Evitts.
Casey Schwartz. 06/19/2025: He was a pioneer of gay and trans medicine. Then the Nazis took power. Review of: The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin / Daniel Brook -- The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story / Brandy Schillace.
Makana Eyre. 06/20/2025: How Hawaii pushed out native Hawaiians. Review of: Kuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i / Sara Kehaulani Goo.
Ron Charles. 06/20/2025: Kathy Wang’s novel is an antidote for our global dissatisfaction. Review of: The Satisfaction Café: A Novel / Kathy Wang.
Rachel Vorona Cote. 06/20/2025: In ‘UnWorld,’ humans try to cure grief with technology. Review of: UnWorld: A Novel / Jayson Greene.
David Kirby. 06/20/2025: How Talking Heads stumbled their way to success. Review of: Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock / Jonathan Gould.
Maureen Corrigan. 06/22/2025: This book about shepherding had me at baa. Review of: The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life / Helen Whybrow.
Julia M. Klein. 06/22/2025: ‘The Scrapbook’ considers the weight of history on a modern love. Review of: The Scrapbook: A Novel / Heather Clark.
Alex Shephard. 06/24/2025: Lisa Murkowski is a canny politician. In a memoir, she claims she’s not. Review of: Far from Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C. / Lisa Murkowski.
Tariro Mzezewa. 06/24/2025: Fashion icon Virgil Abloh gets the bio he deserves in ‘Make It Ours.’ Review of: Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh / Robin Givhan.
Jon Michaud. 06/24/2025: ‘Among Friends’ captures the joy and danger of intimacy. Review of: Among Friends: A Novel / Hal Ebbott.
Andrew Jeong. 06/25/2025: Federal court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training. "Anthropic didn’t break the law when it trained its chatbot with copyrighted books, a judge said, but it must go to trial for allegedly using pirated books."
Joan Frank. 06/25/2025: Amy Bloom’s latest novel finds deep comfort in found family. Review of: I'll Be Right Here: A Novel / Amy Bloom.
Sumaiya Aftab Ahmed. 06/26/2025: From the author of ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ three dreamlike romances. Review of: Room on the Sea: Three Novellas / André Aciman.
Timothy Shenk. 06/26/2025: ‘Buckley’ is the richest account yet of an enthralling and maddening conservative icon. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Charlotte Gordon. 06/27/2025: A writer faces her painful past, with the help of Virginia Woolf. Review of: In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf / Heather Christie.
Elizabeth Hand. 06/29/2025: Ivy Pochoda’s new horror novel is a stiletto-sharp remake of Euripides. Review of: Ecstasy / Ivy Pochoda.
Robert Rubsam. 06/30/2025: In this inventive novel, a long-dead poet narrates from beneath Arctic ice. Review of: Strange and Perfect Account From the Permafrost / Donald Niedekker, translated from Dutch by Jonathan Reeder.
Frances Stead Stellars. 06/01/2025: How kind can a leader be? Jacinda Ardern makes the case for compassion. Review of: A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir / Jacinda Ardern.
S. Kirk Walsh. 06/03/2025: A playfully inventive novel set in Ukraine asks serious questions. Review of: Endling: A Novel / Maria Reva.
Kristen Millares Young. 06/03/2025: A writer gave up sex for a year and discovered pleasure. Review of: The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex / Melissa Febos.
Ron Charles. 06/03/2025: ‘The River Is Waiting’ is every parent’s nightmare. Review of: The River Is Waiting: A Novel / Wally Lamb.
Porter Shreve. 06/04/2025: A funny, moving look at mid-century life. Review of: My Childhood in Pieces: A Stand-Up Comedy, a Skokie Elegy / Edward Hirsch. "Poet Edward Hirsch’s memoir explores his colorful upbringing in Chicago and Skokie, Illinois."
Dennis Duncan. 06/04/2025: Our languages have more in common than you might think. Review of: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global / Laura Spinney.
Maegan Vazquez. 06/04/2025: Karine Jean-Pierre leaves Democratic Party, pens book about ‘broken’ White House. "Former press secretary’s tome will publish in October, and its title is a nod to her recently announced departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent."
Mark Dery. 06/05/2025: Even dreams aren’t safe when fascism looms. Regarding the reissue of The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation / Charlotte Beradt; translator Damion Searls.
Courtney Tenz. 06/05/2025: A mother pays tribute to the sons she lost. Review of: Things in Nature Merely Grow / Yiyun Li.
Thomas Floyd. 06/06/2025: A producer of ‘Rent’ and ‘Hamilton’ dishes about his Broadway career. Review of: Theater Kid: A Broadway Memoir / Jeffrey Seller.
Travis M. Andrews. 06/07/2025: America’s ‘spot news novelist’ takes on the Trump era from Spokane. Interview regarding So Far Gone: A Novel / Jess Walter.
Francine Prose. 06/07/2025: After 100 years, there’s still much to learn from ‘Mrs. Dalloway.’
Neely Tucker. 06/08/2025: S.A. Cosby isn’t letting up. Review of: King of Ashes: A Novel / S.A. Cosby.
Clare McHugh. 06/09/2025: ‘Days of Light’ dramatizes life within the Bloomsbury Group. Review of the novel Days of Light / Megan Hunter.
Charles Arrowsmith. 06/10/2025: ‘Great Black Hope’ proves Rob Franklin has something to say. Review of: Great Black Hope: A Novel / Rob Franklin.
Janine Joseph. 06/10/2025: Dreaming of Home: How We Turn Fear into Pride, Power, and Real Change / Cristina Jiménez.
Allison Stewart. 06/11/2025: A flashback to the tabloid culture that made and broke Britney Spears. Review of: Waiting for Britney Spears: A True Story, Allegedly / Jeff Weiss.
Ron Charles. 06/11/2025: ‘Bug Hollow’ perfectly captures the unpredictability of life. Review of: Bug Hollow: A Novel / Michelle Huneven.
Ty Burr. 06/11/2025: Desi Arnaz was so much more than his ‘I Love Lucy’ character. Review of: Desi Arnaz: The Man Who Invented Television / Todd S. Purdom.
Wendy Smith. 06/11/2025: Uncovering the Pacific Northwest’s violent history and toxic legacy. Review of: Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Carl Hoffman. 06/12/2025: The gritty, unglamorous truth about the antiheroes of the Wild West. Review of: The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild / Bryan Burrough.
Becca Rothfeld. 06/13/2025: ‘Plato and the Tyrant’ humanizes the famous philosopher. Review of: Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece's Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece / James Romm.
Michael Dirda. 06/13/2025: His biography of James Joyce was a masterpiece. Now he gets his due. Review of: Ellmann's Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker / Zachary Leader.
Kathleen Parker. 06/13/2025: This writer warned us about tyranny years ago. Will we listen now? Regarding the PBS documentary on Hannah Arendt.
Chris Klimek. 06/13/2025: ‘Collisions’ details the world-altering genius of Luis Alvarez: biography revisits the life and career of the Nobel laureate physicist. Review of: Collisions: A Physicist's Journey from Hiroshima to the Death of the Dinosaurs / Alex Nevala-Lee.
Alexander Stern. 06/14/2025: This philosopher thinks we should embrace shame for the good of all. Review of: A Philosophy of Shame: A Revolutionary Emotion / Frédéric Gros; translator Andrew James Bliss.
Sheila McClear. 06/15/2025: Submersibles can be deadly. For some, that’s the appeal. Review of: Submersed: Wonder, Obsession, and Murder in the World of Amateur Submarines / Matthew Gavin Frank.
Abhrajyoti Chakraborty. 06/16/2025: In Tash Aw’s ‘The South,’ a man recalls a youthful love affair. Review of: The South: a novel / Tash Aw.
Alex Beam. 06/16/2025: ‘Joseph Smith’ is a clear-eyed biography of the Mormon founder. Review of: Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet / John G. Turner.
Hamilton Cain. 06/17/2025: ‘Fulfillment’ is a splendid novel by a rising literary star. Review of: Fulfillment: A Novel / Lee Cole.
Becca Rothfeld. 06/18/2025: ‘The Haves and Have-Yachts’ mingles with the new aristocracy. Review of: The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich / Evan Osnos.
Alexis Burling. 06/18/2025: A terrifying look at wildfires from the hotshots who fight them. Review of: When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World / Jordan Thomas -- Wildfire Days: A Woman, a Hotshot Crew, and the Burning American West / Kelly Ramsey.
Karen Heller. 06/19/2025: A century ago, this designer set women free. And gave them pockets. Review of: Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free / Elizabeth Evitts.
Casey Schwartz. 06/19/2025: He was a pioneer of gay and trans medicine. Then the Nazis took power. Review of: The Einstein of Sex: Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, Visionary of Weimar Berlin / Daniel Brook -- The Intermediaries: A Weimar Story / Brandy Schillace.
Makana Eyre. 06/20/2025: How Hawaii pushed out native Hawaiians. Review of: Kuleana: A Story of Family, Land, and Legacy in Old Hawai'i / Sara Kehaulani Goo.
Ron Charles. 06/20/2025: Kathy Wang’s novel is an antidote for our global dissatisfaction. Review of: The Satisfaction Café: A Novel / Kathy Wang.
Rachel Vorona Cote. 06/20/2025: In ‘UnWorld,’ humans try to cure grief with technology. Review of: UnWorld: A Novel / Jayson Greene.
David Kirby. 06/20/2025: How Talking Heads stumbled their way to success. Review of: Burning Down the House: Talking Heads and the New York Scene That Transformed Rock / Jonathan Gould.
Maureen Corrigan. 06/22/2025: This book about shepherding had me at baa. Review of: The Salt Stones: Seasons of a Shepherd’s Life / Helen Whybrow.
Julia M. Klein. 06/22/2025: ‘The Scrapbook’ considers the weight of history on a modern love. Review of: The Scrapbook: A Novel / Heather Clark.
Alex Shephard. 06/24/2025: Lisa Murkowski is a canny politician. In a memoir, she claims she’s not. Review of: Far from Home: An Alaskan Senator Faces the Extreme Climate of Washington, D.C. / Lisa Murkowski.
Tariro Mzezewa. 06/24/2025: Fashion icon Virgil Abloh gets the bio he deserves in ‘Make It Ours.’ Review of: Make It Ours: Crashing the Gates of Culture with Virgil Abloh / Robin Givhan.
Jon Michaud. 06/24/2025: ‘Among Friends’ captures the joy and danger of intimacy. Review of: Among Friends: A Novel / Hal Ebbott.
Andrew Jeong. 06/25/2025: Federal court says copyrighted books are fair use for AI training. "Anthropic didn’t break the law when it trained its chatbot with copyrighted books, a judge said, but it must go to trial for allegedly using pirated books."
Joan Frank. 06/25/2025: Amy Bloom’s latest novel finds deep comfort in found family. Review of: I'll Be Right Here: A Novel / Amy Bloom.
Sumaiya Aftab Ahmed. 06/26/2025: From the author of ‘Call Me by Your Name,’ three dreamlike romances. Review of: Room on the Sea: Three Novellas / André Aciman.
Timothy Shenk. 06/26/2025: ‘Buckley’ is the richest account yet of an enthralling and maddening conservative icon. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Charlotte Gordon. 06/27/2025: A writer faces her painful past, with the help of Virginia Woolf. Review of: In the Rhododendrons: A Memoir with Appearances by Virginia Woolf / Heather Christie.
Elizabeth Hand. 06/29/2025: Ivy Pochoda’s new horror novel is a stiletto-sharp remake of Euripides. Review of: Ecstasy / Ivy Pochoda.
Robert Rubsam. 06/30/2025: In this inventive novel, a long-dead poet narrates from beneath Arctic ice. Review of: Strange and Perfect Account From the Permafrost / Donald Niedekker, translated from Dutch by Jonathan Reeder.
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Leslie Epstein, 1938-2025
Emily Langer. WaPo, 05/30/2025: Leslie Epstein, novelist who delved into Holocaust history, dies at 87. "He mined the past in novels including “King of the Jews,” an acclaimed if divisive work about moral complexities in the Nazi ghettos."
Leslie Epstein's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/epsteinleslie
Emily Langer. WaPo, 05/30/2025: Leslie Epstein, novelist who delved into Holocaust history, dies at 87. "He mined the past in novels including “King of the Jews,” an acclaimed if divisive work about moral complexities in the Nazi ghettos."
Leslie Epstein's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/epsteinleslie
134featherbear
The Critic (UK) June 2025
Jeremy Black. 06/01/2025: Murders for June. Crime fiction round-up.
Alexander Larman. 06/02/2025: The hilarious return of the campus novel. Review of: Shibboleth / Thomas Peermohamed Lambert (Europa Editions).
Yuan Yi Zhu. 06/04/2025: Potatoes, pigs and peat: A not-so-definitive account of Ireland’s Great Famine. Review of: Rot: A History of the Irish Famine / Padraic X. Scanlan.
Lola Salem. 06/10/2025: The long afterlife of a literary classic. Review of: Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Biography / Joseph Luzzi.
Henry George. 06/11/2025: A heap of broken images. Review of: Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis / Robert D. Kaplan.
Richard Negus. 06/11/2025: The ancient pull of troubled waters. Review of: Is A River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Graham Elliott. 06/12/2025: How speech flowered from an ancient root: Connective tissue between Classical Western and Indian languages. Review of: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global / Laura Spinney.
Patrick Laurie. 06/12/2025: The promised land: Even when we try to be clear about how land makes us feel, we often get tangled up. Review of: Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our Relationship With the Countryside / Patrick Galbraith.
Daniel Johnson. 06/13/2025: A blunderbuss blast at “progressives.” Review of: The Progress Trap: The Modern Left and the False Authority of History / Ben Cobley (Polity).
Sibyl Ruth. 06/13/2025: “I’m afraid the news is not good …”: Our confidence in doctor diagnosis is sadly misplaced. Review of: The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far / Suzanne O’Sullivan.
Sophia Money-Coutts. 06/14/2025: Marriage blues. Review of the novel: So Good to See You / Francesca Hornak.
John Self. 06/14/2025: Might this win the Booker? The critic weighs 2 novels: Ripeness / Sarah Moss -- Gunk / Saba Sams -- and celebrates the reissue of Lady L. / Romain Gary.
John Sturgis. 06/19/2025: Panic on the streets. Review of: Three Weeks In July / Adam Wishart and James Nally.
Edmund Stewart. 06/28/2025: Should we make Classics history? Review of: What is Ancient History? / Walter Scheidel.
John Self. 06/30/2025: A story of doublings: If you want to understand how the world works now, read a classic. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey with excursions into The Girl with the Golden Eyes / Honoré de Balzac, translated by Carol Cosman -- The Latehomecomer: Essential Stories / Mavis Gallant (Pushkin Press).
Jeremy Black. 06/01/2025: Murders for June. Crime fiction round-up.
Alexander Larman. 06/02/2025: The hilarious return of the campus novel. Review of: Shibboleth / Thomas Peermohamed Lambert (Europa Editions).
Yuan Yi Zhu. 06/04/2025: Potatoes, pigs and peat: A not-so-definitive account of Ireland’s Great Famine. Review of: Rot: A History of the Irish Famine / Padraic X. Scanlan.
Lola Salem. 06/10/2025: The long afterlife of a literary classic. Review of: Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Biography / Joseph Luzzi.
Henry George. 06/11/2025: A heap of broken images. Review of: Waste Land: A World in Permanent Crisis / Robert D. Kaplan.
Richard Negus. 06/11/2025: The ancient pull of troubled waters. Review of: Is A River Alive? / Robert Macfarlane.
Graham Elliott. 06/12/2025: How speech flowered from an ancient root: Connective tissue between Classical Western and Indian languages. Review of: Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global / Laura Spinney.
Patrick Laurie. 06/12/2025: The promised land: Even when we try to be clear about how land makes us feel, we often get tangled up. Review of: Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our Relationship With the Countryside / Patrick Galbraith.
Daniel Johnson. 06/13/2025: A blunderbuss blast at “progressives.” Review of: The Progress Trap: The Modern Left and the False Authority of History / Ben Cobley (Polity).
Sibyl Ruth. 06/13/2025: “I’m afraid the news is not good …”: Our confidence in doctor diagnosis is sadly misplaced. Review of: The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far / Suzanne O’Sullivan.
Sophia Money-Coutts. 06/14/2025: Marriage blues. Review of the novel: So Good to See You / Francesca Hornak.
John Self. 06/14/2025: Might this win the Booker? The critic weighs 2 novels: Ripeness / Sarah Moss -- Gunk / Saba Sams -- and celebrates the reissue of Lady L. / Romain Gary.
John Sturgis. 06/19/2025: Panic on the streets. Review of: Three Weeks In July / Adam Wishart and James Nally.
Edmund Stewart. 06/28/2025: Should we make Classics history? Review of: What is Ancient History? / Walter Scheidel.
John Self. 06/30/2025: A story of doublings: If you want to understand how the world works now, read a classic. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey with excursions into The Girl with the Golden Eyes / Honoré de Balzac, translated by Carol Cosman -- The Latehomecomer: Essential Stories / Mavis Gallant (Pushkin Press).
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June 01 2025 updates (primarily to May reviews added in June)
WaPo May 24: Apple & China May 26: small town Ireland novel May 28: Jessica Stanley's motherhood novel May 29: W. E. B. Du Bois's political aesthetics May 30: AI therapist novel; boxing novel w/a very enthusiastic review by Ron Charles >66 featherbear:
Yale Review May 27: interview w/John Cassidy, author of Capitalism & its Critics >96 featherbear:
May 2025 index >63 featherbear:
WaPo May 24: Apple & China May 26: small town Ireland novel May 28: Jessica Stanley's motherhood novel May 29: W. E. B. Du Bois's political aesthetics May 30: AI therapist novel; boxing novel w/a very enthusiastic review by Ron Charles >66 featherbear:
Yale Review May 27: interview w/John Cassidy, author of Capitalism & its Critics >96 featherbear:
May 2025 index >63 featherbear:
136featherbear
The Atlantic June 2025:
Cullen Murphy. 06/01/2025: What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Lily Meyer. 06/03/2025: The Novelist Who Learned to Write Anger—And Its Aftermath. Review of: Flashlight / Susan Choi.
Michael Walters. 06/04/2025: Archivists Aren’t Ready for the ‘Very Online’ Era. "The challenge: how to catalog and derive meaning from so much digital clutter."
Graham Robb. 06/09/2025: The Real Message Behind Les Misérables. "As Donald Trump prepares to host Les Mis at the Kennedy Center, a Victor Hugo scholar imagines what the author would make of the president."
Eric Bulson. 06/16/2025: The Canonization of James Joyce: Richard Ellmann’s biography made the novelist a hero to generations of readers and scholars. Review of: Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker / Zachary Leader.
Sarah Weinman. 06/18/2025: A Provocative Argument About What Creates Serial Killers. Review of: Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Robert Rubsam. 06/21/2025: Reimagines the Meaning of Outer Space. Review of: Audition / Pip Adam.
Jeremy Gordon. 06/24/2025: The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction.
Lily Meyer. 06/27/2025: The Cure for Guilty Memories. Review of: The Antidote: A Novel / Karen Russell.
Boris Kachka. 06/27/2025: Toni Morrison’s Definition of a Legacy. "As a writer and an editor, she put humanity plainly on the page, where it would outlast her and her critics alike."
Cullen Murphy. 06/01/2025: What Made William F. Buckley So Unusual. Review of: Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Lily Meyer. 06/03/2025: The Novelist Who Learned to Write Anger—And Its Aftermath. Review of: Flashlight / Susan Choi.
Michael Walters. 06/04/2025: Archivists Aren’t Ready for the ‘Very Online’ Era. "The challenge: how to catalog and derive meaning from so much digital clutter."
Graham Robb. 06/09/2025: The Real Message Behind Les Misérables. "As Donald Trump prepares to host Les Mis at the Kennedy Center, a Victor Hugo scholar imagines what the author would make of the president."
Eric Bulson. 06/16/2025: The Canonization of James Joyce: Richard Ellmann’s biography made the novelist a hero to generations of readers and scholars. Review of: Ellmann’s Joyce: The Biography of a Masterpiece and Its Maker / Zachary Leader.
Sarah Weinman. 06/18/2025: A Provocative Argument About What Creates Serial Killers. Review of: Murderland: Crime and Bloodlust in the Time of Serial Killers / Caroline Fraser.
Robert Rubsam. 06/21/2025: Reimagines the Meaning of Outer Space. Review of: Audition / Pip Adam.
Jeremy Gordon. 06/24/2025: The Real Reason Men Should Read Fiction.
Lily Meyer. 06/27/2025: The Cure for Guilty Memories. Review of: The Antidote: A Novel / Karen Russell.
Boris Kachka. 06/27/2025: Toni Morrison’s Definition of a Legacy. "As a writer and an editor, she put humanity plainly on the page, where it would outlast her and her critics alike."
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The Guardian June 2025:
Barbara Demick. 06/01/2025: ‘Mom, am I the missing twin?’: the story of two babies separated by the Chinese state – and their emotional reunion. "US couple Marsha and Al adopted a baby girl from China because they thought she had been abandoned. Years later they read about a girl whose sister had been illegally snatched by the authorities. Was everything they’d been told about their daughter a lie?" This is a lengthy excerpt from: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick.
Photos by Muhammad Fadli and others, text by Joan Aurelia. 06/02/2025: Indonesia’s stunning microlibraries draw young readers – in pictures.Using passive design and local materials such as ice cream buckets, these modern community spaces offer a respite from urban heat and hustle.
Dorian Lynskey. 06/02/2025: A boosterish case for atomic energy. Review of: Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World (US subtitle appears to be: How Atomic Energy Will Save the World) / Tim Gregory. Publisher: UK: Bodley Head; US: Pegasus (Aug 5 per Amazon).
Sarah Moss. 06/02/2025: Beyond the bounds of fiction. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey. "You can read it from either end, and go round again, as memoir collides with invention in a brilliant interrogation of art, faith and relationships."
Philip Hoare. 06/02/2025: Butt-naked Milton and a spot of fellatio: why William Blake became a queer icon. Hoare talks about his new book William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World.
Alaina Demopoulos. 06/02/2025: ‘It’s so boring’: Gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids - and educators are worried. "Screen time has increasingly replaced story time, and experts warn this could lead to children falling behind."
Jason Wilson. 06/03/2025: How the far right seeks to spread its ideology through the publishing world.
Martin Pengelly. 06/03/2025: ‘Hard for me to understand’: grappling with the Charlottesville tragedy eight years on. Review of: Charlottesville: An American Story / Deborah Baker.
Razia Iqbal. 06/03/2025: A Palestinian American writer’s story of exile, addiction and surrogacy: ‘I had to do something with the fragments.’ Interview with Hala Alyan regarding her memoir I’ll Tell You When I’m Home.
Joanna Cannon. 06/03/2025: Powerful debut about lesbian mothers in the 80s. Review of: A Family Matter: a novel / Claire Lynch.
Estelle Tang. 06/03/2025: ‘Our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency’: Melissa Febos on her year of celibacy. Interview with Febos regarding her The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex.
J. Oliver Conroy. 06/04/2025: The genteel, silver-tongued thinker who fathered US conservatism - and paved the way for Trump. Review of: Buckley: The Life and Revolution that Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Elizabeth Lowry. 06/04/2025: Haunting visions from a Booker winner. Review of: Twelve Post-War Tales / Graham Swift.
Josie Glausiusz. 06/04/2025: The creatures that can survive anywhere. Review of: Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places / Alex Riley (Atlantic; to be released in the US in Sept per Amazon).
Gaby Hinsliff. 06/05/2025: Not your usual PM. Review of: A Different Kind of Power / Jacinda Ardern.
Tim Byrne. 06/05/2025: A grim portrait of homophobia and masculinity. King of Dirt / Holden Sheppard.
Tim Teeman. 06/06/2025: Diner dates and bathhouse chili: the colorful, defiant history of America’s gay restaurants. Review of: Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America's Gay Restaurants / Erik Piepenburg.
Geoff Dyer. 06/06/2025: Geoff Dyer: ‘I don’t go to books for comfort; I have a memory foam pillow for that.’ "The author on Marxist revelations, returning to Don DeLillo and reading all of Elizabeth Taylor." Interview on "the books in my life."
Shaun Walker. 06/06/2025: ‘She lived without fear’: daughter of Chechen activist publishes book she vowed to pen after mother’s murder. Regarding: Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me / Lana Estemirova (John Murray, UK pub date June 19).
Nina Allan. 06/06/2025: This portrait of German film-maker GW Pabst and his moral struggles under the Nazis has the darkness and ambiguity of a modern Grimms’ fairytale. Review of: The Director: a novel / Daniel Kehlmann; translator Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit).
Rosanna Greenstreet. 06/07/2025: Jack Reacher author Lee Child: ‘More sex is medically implausible and I’m as rich and famous as I need to be.’ Q&A.
Ramon Antonio Vargas. 06/07/2025: Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview.
Jason Wilson. 06/07/2025: Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism.
Molly Jong-Fast. 06/08/2025: My mother was a famous feminist writer known for her candour and wit. But she was also a fantasist who couldn’t be bothered to spend time raising me. Excerpt from: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Lloyd Green. 06/08/2025: Newt Gringrich selective spins in new book praising president. Review of: Trump’s Triumph: America's Greatest Comeback / Newt Gingrich (Center Street).
Michael Donkor. 06/09/2025: Anything can happen on this remote Scottish island. Review of: Muckle Flugga / Michael Pedersen.
Jonathan Jones. 06/09/2025: The remarkable lives of Gwen and Augustus John. Review of: Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John / Judith Mackrell.
Mythili Rao. 06/11/2025: Colourful tales of animal reproduction. Review of: The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender and Mating Shape Modern Relationships / Nathan H Lents.
Barney Ross. 06/11/2025: A satisfying tale of memory and place. Review of: Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way / Elaine Feeney.
Ella Creamer & Lucy Knight. 06/11/2025: Women’s prize for fiction goes to debut novelist Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep. "Nonfiction award goes to Rachel Clarke’s ‘beautiful and compassionate’ The Story of a Heart, about a lifesaving transplant seen from all sides."
Alex Clark. 06/13/2025: ‘They entrusted me with their daughter’s memory’: Women’s prize winner Rachel Clarke on her story of a life-saving transplant. (Interview)
Lisa Allardice. 06/13/2025: Women’s prize winner Yael van der Wouden: ‘It’s heartbreaking to see so much hatred towards queer people.’ (Interview)
Dalya Alberge. 06/13/2025: British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked. "Exclusive: Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency,"
Michaela Makusha. 06/13/2025: ‘The best way to discover hidden gems’: why you should try out a bookshop crawl.
Huw Green. 06/13/2025: Explaining psychology’s most important theory. Review of: A Trick of the Mind: How the Brain Invents Your Reality / Daniel Yon.
Frances Wilson. 06/15/2025: ‘Odd things happened when she was around’: the unnerving vision of Muriel Spark. "From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future."
Sam Byers. 06/16/2025: A polyphonic portrait of class and trauma in Belfast. Review of: The Benefactors / Wendy Erskine.
Kathryn Hughes. 06/17/2025: The power of stories in an age of migration. Review of: Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling / Marina Warner (William Collins).
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett. 06/17/2025: Some of the best sex scenes I’ve read this year. Review of: Ordinary Love / Marie Rutkoski.
James Smart. 06/18/2025: Privilege and race intersect in a fine debut. Review of: Great Black Hope / Rob Franklin.
Fiona Sturges. 06/19/2025: Erica Jong’s daughter on the worst year of her life. Review of: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Ella Creamer. 06/19/2025: Carnegie medal for writing: Margaret McDonald named youngest ever winner. For Glasgow Boys.
Caroline Davies. 06/22/2025: Charles Dickens’s ‘sliding doors’ moment: how a cold turned an aspiring thespian into a writer. "An exhibition explores the authors’ love of theatre, highlighting the dramatic impact of his works."
Caitlin Welsh. 06/22/2025: Marginalia mania: how ‘annotating’ books went from big no-no to BookTok’s next trend.
Kate Connolly. 06/24/2025: Unknown novel by writer who charted Hitler’s rise becomes German bestseller. Regarding Abschied / Sebastian Haffner.
Joe Moran. 06/24/2025: Behind the scenes at the Guardian. Review of: Witness in a Time of Turmoil: Inside the Guardian’s Global Revolution – Volume One: 1986-1995 / Ian Mayes (Guardian Books).
Christopher Shrimpton. 06/24/2025: How to blow up your life. Review of: Among Friends: a novel / Hal Ebbott.
Lucy Knight. 06/25/2025: ‘Intense’ novel about robot abused by her boyfriend/owner wins Arthur C Clarke science fiction award. Winner: Annie Bot / Sierra Greer.
Lara Feigel. 06/25/2025: Queering the Victorians. Review of: The Original: A Novel / Nell Stevens.
Caleb Klaces. 06/26/2025: This Catalonian tale of a botched pact with the devil has the demonic excess of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Review of: I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness / Irene Solà; translated by Mara Faye Lethem.
Pratinav Anil. 06/26/2025: How Russia, China and Cuba changed forever: A historian explores eyewitness accounts of the most dramatic political upheavals of the 20th century. Review of: Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World / Simon Hall (Faber).
Richard Flanagan. 06/27/2025:
The books of my life: ‘When I reread Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop it had corked badly.’ "The Booker-winning author on taking inspiration from Kafka, and a youthful passion for Jackie Collins." Flanagan is the author of Question 7 & The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Beejay Silcox. 06/30/2025: Big, bold and surprising. Review of: Flashlight: a novel / Susan Choi.
Alaina Demopoulos. 06/30/2025: Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading.’
Barbara Demick. 06/01/2025: ‘Mom, am I the missing twin?’: the story of two babies separated by the Chinese state – and their emotional reunion. "US couple Marsha and Al adopted a baby girl from China because they thought she had been abandoned. Years later they read about a girl whose sister had been illegally snatched by the authorities. Was everything they’d been told about their daughter a lie?" This is a lengthy excerpt from: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick.
Photos by Muhammad Fadli and others, text by Joan Aurelia. 06/02/2025: Indonesia’s stunning microlibraries draw young readers – in pictures.Using passive design and local materials such as ice cream buckets, these modern community spaces offer a respite from urban heat and hustle.
Dorian Lynskey. 06/02/2025: A boosterish case for atomic energy. Review of: Going Nuclear: How the Atom Will Save the World (US subtitle appears to be: How Atomic Energy Will Save the World) / Tim Gregory. Publisher: UK: Bodley Head; US: Pegasus (Aug 5 per Amazon).
Sarah Moss. 06/02/2025: Beyond the bounds of fiction. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey. "You can read it from either end, and go round again, as memoir collides with invention in a brilliant interrogation of art, faith and relationships."
Philip Hoare. 06/02/2025: Butt-naked Milton and a spot of fellatio: why William Blake became a queer icon. Hoare talks about his new book William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love: Art, Poetry, and the Imagining of a New World.
Alaina Demopoulos. 06/02/2025: ‘It’s so boring’: Gen Z parents don’t like reading to their kids - and educators are worried. "Screen time has increasingly replaced story time, and experts warn this could lead to children falling behind."
Jason Wilson. 06/03/2025: How the far right seeks to spread its ideology through the publishing world.
Martin Pengelly. 06/03/2025: ‘Hard for me to understand’: grappling with the Charlottesville tragedy eight years on. Review of: Charlottesville: An American Story / Deborah Baker.
Razia Iqbal. 06/03/2025: A Palestinian American writer’s story of exile, addiction and surrogacy: ‘I had to do something with the fragments.’ Interview with Hala Alyan regarding her memoir I’ll Tell You When I’m Home.
Joanna Cannon. 06/03/2025: Powerful debut about lesbian mothers in the 80s. Review of: A Family Matter: a novel / Claire Lynch.
Estelle Tang. 06/03/2025: ‘Our fantasy of love has to do with need and dependency’: Melissa Febos on her year of celibacy. Interview with Febos regarding her The Dry Season: A Memoir of Pleasure in a Year Without Sex.
J. Oliver Conroy. 06/04/2025: The genteel, silver-tongued thinker who fathered US conservatism - and paved the way for Trump. Review of: Buckley: The Life and Revolution that Changed America / Sam Tanenhaus.
Elizabeth Lowry. 06/04/2025: Haunting visions from a Booker winner. Review of: Twelve Post-War Tales / Graham Swift.
Josie Glausiusz. 06/04/2025: The creatures that can survive anywhere. Review of: Super Natural: How Life Thrives in Impossible Places / Alex Riley (Atlantic; to be released in the US in Sept per Amazon).
Gaby Hinsliff. 06/05/2025: Not your usual PM. Review of: A Different Kind of Power / Jacinda Ardern.
Tim Byrne. 06/05/2025: A grim portrait of homophobia and masculinity. King of Dirt / Holden Sheppard.
Tim Teeman. 06/06/2025: Diner dates and bathhouse chili: the colorful, defiant history of America’s gay restaurants. Review of: Dining Out: First Dates, Defiant Nights, and Last Call Disco Fries at America's Gay Restaurants / Erik Piepenburg.
Geoff Dyer. 06/06/2025: Geoff Dyer: ‘I don’t go to books for comfort; I have a memory foam pillow for that.’ "The author on Marxist revelations, returning to Don DeLillo and reading all of Elizabeth Taylor." Interview on "the books in my life."
Shaun Walker. 06/06/2025: ‘She lived without fear’: daughter of Chechen activist publishes book she vowed to pen after mother’s murder. Regarding: Please Live: The Chechen Wars, My Mother and Me / Lana Estemirova (John Murray, UK pub date June 19).
Nina Allan. 06/06/2025: This portrait of German film-maker GW Pabst and his moral struggles under the Nazis has the darkness and ambiguity of a modern Grimms’ fairytale. Review of: The Director: a novel / Daniel Kehlmann; translator Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit).
Rosanna Greenstreet. 06/07/2025: Jack Reacher author Lee Child: ‘More sex is medically implausible and I’m as rich and famous as I need to be.’ Q&A.
Ramon Antonio Vargas. 06/07/2025: Fired US librarian of Congress details callous dismissal in new interview.
Jason Wilson. 06/07/2025: Harvard author Steven Pinker appears on podcast linked to scientific racism.
Molly Jong-Fast. 06/08/2025: My mother was a famous feminist writer known for her candour and wit. But she was also a fantasist who couldn’t be bothered to spend time raising me. Excerpt from: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter's Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Lloyd Green. 06/08/2025: Newt Gringrich selective spins in new book praising president. Review of: Trump’s Triumph: America's Greatest Comeback / Newt Gingrich (Center Street).
Michael Donkor. 06/09/2025: Anything can happen on this remote Scottish island. Review of: Muckle Flugga / Michael Pedersen.
Jonathan Jones. 06/09/2025: The remarkable lives of Gwen and Augustus John. Review of: Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John / Judith Mackrell.
Mythili Rao. 06/11/2025: Colourful tales of animal reproduction. Review of: The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender and Mating Shape Modern Relationships / Nathan H Lents.
Barney Ross. 06/11/2025: A satisfying tale of memory and place. Review of: Let Me Go Mad in My Own Way / Elaine Feeney.
Ella Creamer & Lucy Knight. 06/11/2025: Women’s prize for fiction goes to debut novelist Yael van der Wouden’s The Safekeep. "Nonfiction award goes to Rachel Clarke’s ‘beautiful and compassionate’ The Story of a Heart, about a lifesaving transplant seen from all sides."
Alex Clark. 06/13/2025: ‘They entrusted me with their daughter’s memory’: Women’s prize winner Rachel Clarke on her story of a life-saving transplant. (Interview)
Lisa Allardice. 06/13/2025: Women’s prize winner Yael van der Wouden: ‘It’s heartbreaking to see so much hatred towards queer people.’ (Interview)
Dalya Alberge. 06/13/2025: British Library to reinstate Oscar Wilde’s reader card 130 years after it was revoked. "Exclusive: Pass to be presented to playwright’s grandson after original cancelled over conviction for gross indecency,"
Michaela Makusha. 06/13/2025: ‘The best way to discover hidden gems’: why you should try out a bookshop crawl.
Huw Green. 06/13/2025: Explaining psychology’s most important theory. Review of: A Trick of the Mind: How the Brain Invents Your Reality / Daniel Yon.
Frances Wilson. 06/15/2025: ‘Odd things happened when she was around’: the unnerving vision of Muriel Spark. "From blackmail to burglary, the events of Spark’s life often uncannily echoed those of her novels – no wonder the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie believed she could predict the future."
Sam Byers. 06/16/2025: A polyphonic portrait of class and trauma in Belfast. Review of: The Benefactors / Wendy Erskine.
Kathryn Hughes. 06/17/2025: The power of stories in an age of migration. Review of: Sanctuary: Ways of Telling, Ways of Dwelling / Marina Warner (William Collins).
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett. 06/17/2025: Some of the best sex scenes I’ve read this year. Review of: Ordinary Love / Marie Rutkoski.
James Smart. 06/18/2025: Privilege and race intersect in a fine debut. Review of: Great Black Hope / Rob Franklin.
Fiona Sturges. 06/19/2025: Erica Jong’s daughter on the worst year of her life. Review of: How to Lose Your Mother: A Daughter’s Memoir / Molly Jong-Fast.
Ella Creamer. 06/19/2025: Carnegie medal for writing: Margaret McDonald named youngest ever winner. For Glasgow Boys.
Caroline Davies. 06/22/2025: Charles Dickens’s ‘sliding doors’ moment: how a cold turned an aspiring thespian into a writer. "An exhibition explores the authors’ love of theatre, highlighting the dramatic impact of his works."
Caitlin Welsh. 06/22/2025: Marginalia mania: how ‘annotating’ books went from big no-no to BookTok’s next trend.
Kate Connolly. 06/24/2025: Unknown novel by writer who charted Hitler’s rise becomes German bestseller. Regarding Abschied / Sebastian Haffner.
Joe Moran. 06/24/2025: Behind the scenes at the Guardian. Review of: Witness in a Time of Turmoil: Inside the Guardian’s Global Revolution – Volume One: 1986-1995 / Ian Mayes (Guardian Books).
Christopher Shrimpton. 06/24/2025: How to blow up your life. Review of: Among Friends: a novel / Hal Ebbott.
Lucy Knight. 06/25/2025: ‘Intense’ novel about robot abused by her boyfriend/owner wins Arthur C Clarke science fiction award. Winner: Annie Bot / Sierra Greer.
Lara Feigel. 06/25/2025: Queering the Victorians. Review of: The Original: A Novel / Nell Stevens.
Caleb Klaces. 06/26/2025: This Catalonian tale of a botched pact with the devil has the demonic excess of a Hieronymus Bosch painting. Review of: I Gave You Eyes and You Looked Toward Darkness / Irene Solà; translated by Mara Faye Lethem.
Pratinav Anil. 06/26/2025: How Russia, China and Cuba changed forever: A historian explores eyewitness accounts of the most dramatic political upheavals of the 20th century. Review of: Three Revolutions: Russia, China, Cuba and the Epic Journeys that Changed the World / Simon Hall (Faber).
Richard Flanagan. 06/27/2025:
The books of my life: ‘When I reread Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop it had corked badly.’ "The Booker-winning author on taking inspiration from Kafka, and a youthful passion for Jackie Collins." Flanagan is the author of Question 7 & The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Beejay Silcox. 06/30/2025: Big, bold and surprising. Review of: Flashlight: a novel / Susan Choi.
Alaina Demopoulos. 06/30/2025: Is it OK to read Infinite Jest in public? Why the internet hates ‘performative reading.’
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Jeet Heer. Southwest Review, v. 110, no. 1: Cartoon Liberation | Robert Crumb and His Times.
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John Jeremiah Sullivan. Harper's, June 2025: Twain Dreams: the enigma of Samuel Clemens. "Could some kind of Mark Twain revival be afoot in this, the 175th-anniversary year of Harper’s Magazine, a periodical that more consistently than any other provided a home for Twain’s writing during the half-century-long major phase of his career?"
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Santiago Ramos. Commonweal, 05/24/2025: Dana Gioia searches for cultural inheritors.
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LARB June 2025
Alyssa Quinn. 06/01/2025: Belly-Crawling Through the Dark. Review of: Tunnels / Ben Segal (Schism2).
Sarah Moorhouse. 06/02/2025: Turning Savage to Create a New World. Review of: Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
Joshua D. Rothman. 06/03/2025: Every Word Is to Be Construed in Favor of Liberty. Review of: Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation / Zaakir Tameez.
Chris Featherman. 06/04/2025: If Not a Nemesis, a Mirror? Review of: Ideology and Meaning-Making Under the Putin Regime / Marlene Laruelle (Stanford University Press).
Susan Blumberg-Kasson. 06/05/2025: Daughters Are Not Like Spilled Water. Review of: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick -- Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (10th Anniversary Edition) / Leta Hong Fincher.
Dan Sinykin. 06/05/2025: The Fine Art of Bad Writing. Interview with the author of: People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels / Tom Comitta.
Andrew Koenig. 06/06/2025: If We Could Talk to the Animals. Review of: Milieu: A Creaturely Theory of the Contemporary Novel / Elisha Cohn (Stanford University Press).
Joel Seligman. 06/06/2025: Is Restructuring the Answer? Review of: Reimagining The American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government / Stephen H. Legomsky.
Guobin Yang. 06/07/2025: Two Maoisms. Review of: Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China / Linda Jaivin -- How Maoism Was Made: Reconstructing China, 1949–1965 by Aaron William Moore (editor) and Jennifer Altehenger (editor) (Oxford University Press).
L. Benjamin Rolsky. 06/08/2025: Fetishizing the Right, from McCarthy to Musk. Review of: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Sophie Lewis. 06/09/2025: An Unkillable Streak of the Utopian. Review of the novel I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning / Keiran Goddard.
Kieran Setiya. 06/10/2025: The Politics of Apoliticism. Review of: A Social History of Analytical Philosophy / Christoph Shuringa.
Isabelle Stuart. 06/10/2025: The Legend of Bloomsbury. Review of the novel: Days of Light / Megan Hunter.
Arnaud Gerspacher. 06/14/2025: The Astronomy of Melancholy. Review of: Sad Planets / Dominic Pettman and Eugene Thacker.
Danielle Chelosky. 06/14/2025: It Turns Out He Has a Heart. Review of: Annihilation / Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Shaun Whiteside.
Billy J. Stratton. 06/15/2025: How Can You Stop a Country from Happening? Review of: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter / Stephen Graham Jones.
Jordan S. Carroll. 06/16/2025: Reactionary Futurism 2025.
Matthew D. LaPlante. 06/16/2025: Complicity Becomes Us. Review of: The Unwanted: a novel / Boris Fishman.
Nick Slackman. 06/17/2025: No Matter How Much We Look, We Don’t Necessarily See. Review of: The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman / Lynne Tillman and Taylor Lewandowski.
Jon Repetti. 06/17/2025: Autofiction’s Primal Scene. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey.
Ilana Massad. 06/18/2025: If There’s Truth in Cinema, It’s Sideways. Review of: Out There in the Dark (essays) / Katharine Coldiron (Autofocus Books).
Sarah Brouillette. 06/19/2025: Conspiracism, Nationalism, Decline. Review of: Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline / Jamie Merchant.
Noah Rawlings. 06/19/2025: First Thought, (Not) Best Thought. Review of: Notes to John / Joan Didion.
Josh Billings. 06/20/2025: The Superfluous Man Redux. Review of Goat Song / Konstantin Vaginov. Translated by Ainsley Morse and Geoff Cebula.
Anna Marie Cain. 06/21/2025: Rehearsing for the Apocalypse. Interview with Karen Russell regarding her novel The Antidote.
Akanksha Singh. 06/22/2025: A Story Needs to Shake You Up. Interview with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, author of “The Sisters,” "about the process of translating his own work and the power of the stories we tell ourselves."
Christopher T. Fan. 06/24/2025: Movement Injuries. Review of: Taipei at Daybreak / Brian Hioe -- Taiwan Travelogue / Yáng Shuāng-zi.
Laurie Rider. 06/26/2025: Things Still to Be Salvaged. Review of: The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation / Charlotte Beradt. Translated by Damion Searls.
Colin Marshall. 06/27/2025: The Undying Chinese Writing System. Review of: Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese / Zev Handel -- Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age / Uluğ Kuzuoğlu.
Jane Hayward. 06/30/2025: There Isn’t Going to Be Any Trouble. Review of: The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform / Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian -- China’s Age of Abundance: Origins, Ascendance, and Aftermath / Wang Feng (Cambridge University Press).
Alyssa Quinn. 06/01/2025: Belly-Crawling Through the Dark. Review of: Tunnels / Ben Segal (Schism2).
Sarah Moorhouse. 06/02/2025: Turning Savage to Create a New World. Review of: Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin / Sue Prideaux.
Joshua D. Rothman. 06/03/2025: Every Word Is to Be Construed in Favor of Liberty. Review of: Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation / Zaakir Tameez.
Chris Featherman. 06/04/2025: If Not a Nemesis, a Mirror? Review of: Ideology and Meaning-Making Under the Putin Regime / Marlene Laruelle (Stanford University Press).
Susan Blumberg-Kasson. 06/05/2025: Daughters Are Not Like Spilled Water. Review of: Daughters of the Bamboo Grove: From China to America, a True Story of Abduction, Adoption, and Separated Twins / Barbara Demick -- Leftover Women: The Resurgence of Gender Inequality in China (10th Anniversary Edition) / Leta Hong Fincher.
Dan Sinykin. 06/05/2025: The Fine Art of Bad Writing. Interview with the author of: People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels / Tom Comitta.
Andrew Koenig. 06/06/2025: If We Could Talk to the Animals. Review of: Milieu: A Creaturely Theory of the Contemporary Novel / Elisha Cohn (Stanford University Press).
Joel Seligman. 06/06/2025: Is Restructuring the Answer? Review of: Reimagining The American Union: The Case for Abolishing State Government / Stephen H. Legomsky.
Guobin Yang. 06/07/2025: Two Maoisms. Review of: Bombard the Headquarters! The Cultural Revolution in China / Linda Jaivin -- How Maoism Was Made: Reconstructing China, 1949–1965 by Aaron William Moore (editor) and Jennifer Altehenger (editor) (Oxford University Press).
L. Benjamin Rolsky. 06/08/2025: Fetishizing the Right, from McCarthy to Musk. Review of: Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right / Quinn Slobodian.
Sophie Lewis. 06/09/2025: An Unkillable Streak of the Utopian. Review of the novel I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning / Keiran Goddard.
Kieran Setiya. 06/10/2025: The Politics of Apoliticism. Review of: A Social History of Analytical Philosophy / Christoph Shuringa.
Isabelle Stuart. 06/10/2025: The Legend of Bloomsbury. Review of the novel: Days of Light / Megan Hunter.
Arnaud Gerspacher. 06/14/2025: The Astronomy of Melancholy. Review of: Sad Planets / Dominic Pettman and Eugene Thacker.
Danielle Chelosky. 06/14/2025: It Turns Out He Has a Heart. Review of: Annihilation / Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Shaun Whiteside.
Billy J. Stratton. 06/15/2025: How Can You Stop a Country from Happening? Review of: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter / Stephen Graham Jones.
Jordan S. Carroll. 06/16/2025: Reactionary Futurism 2025.
Matthew D. LaPlante. 06/16/2025: Complicity Becomes Us. Review of: The Unwanted: a novel / Boris Fishman.
Nick Slackman. 06/17/2025: No Matter How Much We Look, We Don’t Necessarily See. Review of: The Mystery of Perception: A Conversation with Lynne Tillman / Lynne Tillman and Taylor Lewandowski.
Jon Repetti. 06/17/2025: Autofiction’s Primal Scene. Review of: The Möbius Book / Catherine Lacey.
Ilana Massad. 06/18/2025: If There’s Truth in Cinema, It’s Sideways. Review of: Out There in the Dark (essays) / Katharine Coldiron (Autofocus Books).
Sarah Brouillette. 06/19/2025: Conspiracism, Nationalism, Decline. Review of: Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline / Jamie Merchant.
Noah Rawlings. 06/19/2025: First Thought, (Not) Best Thought. Review of: Notes to John / Joan Didion.
Josh Billings. 06/20/2025: The Superfluous Man Redux. Review of Goat Song / Konstantin Vaginov. Translated by Ainsley Morse and Geoff Cebula.
Anna Marie Cain. 06/21/2025: Rehearsing for the Apocalypse. Interview with Karen Russell regarding her novel The Antidote.
Akanksha Singh. 06/22/2025: A Story Needs to Shake You Up. Interview with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, author of “The Sisters,” "about the process of translating his own work and the power of the stories we tell ourselves."
Christopher T. Fan. 06/24/2025: Movement Injuries. Review of: Taipei at Daybreak / Brian Hioe -- Taiwan Travelogue / Yáng Shuāng-zi.
Laurie Rider. 06/26/2025: Things Still to Be Salvaged. Review of: The Third Reich of Dreams: The Nightmares of a Nation / Charlotte Beradt. Translated by Damion Searls.
Colin Marshall. 06/27/2025: The Undying Chinese Writing System. Review of: Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese / Zev Handel -- Codes of Modernity: Chinese Scripts in the Global Information Age / Uluğ Kuzuoğlu.
Jane Hayward. 06/30/2025: There Isn’t Going to Be Any Trouble. Review of: The Great Transformation: China’s Road from Revolution to Reform / Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian -- China’s Age of Abundance: Origins, Ascendance, and Aftermath / Wang Feng (Cambridge University Press).
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NYRB Online June 12 2025:
Literature
Namwali Serpell. Keeping Up with Mrs. Jones. Review of: Fish Tales / Nettie Jones.
Michael Hofmann. Novels Without Food. Review of: Chevengur / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler, with an introduction by Robert Chandler and an essay by Vladimir Sharov -- The Foundation Pit / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and Olga Meerson, with notes and an afterword by Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson -- Happy Moscow / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and others -- Soul / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler with Katia Grigoruk, Angela Livingstone, Olga Meerson, and Eric Naiman, with an afterword by John Berger (all titles issued by New York Review Books).
Susan Neiman. The Conformist. Review of: The Director: a novel / Daniel Kehlmann, translated from the German by Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit Books).
Arts
Philip Clark. The Atonal Genie. Review of: Schoenberg: Why He Matters / Harvey Sachs.
Christopher Benfey. Anecdote of the Teapot: A teapot made in South Carolina during the 1760s by an enigmatic English émigré potter named John Bartlam provides an allegory for porcelain’s journey from the East. (Essay)
Science, Technology, Natural History
Tim Flannery. Electrome Dreams. Review of: We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds / Sally Adee.
Jenny Uglow. Orchid Frenzy. Review of: The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession / Sarah Bilston -- Saving Orchids: Stories of Species Survival in a Changing World / Philip Seaton and Lawrence W. Zettler (Kew Publishing/ University of Chicago Press).
Religion
Fintan O'Toole. Can the Church Evolve?: The big question for Pope Leo XIV is whether he will complete Pope Francis’s mission to make the Catholic Church less tyrannical. (Essay)
History, Politics, & Society
Colin Thubron. The Haven of Wilderness. Review of 4 books by Kapka Kassabova issued by Graywolf Press: Anima: A Wild Pastoral -- Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time -- To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace -- Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe. ("In a quartet of books about life in the mountains of southern Bulgaria and North Macedonia as they descend into Greece, Kapka Kassabova gives voice to the shepherds, nomads, horse breeders, dog breeders, villagers, and refugees who live there.")
Dawn Marie Paley. A Shelter or a Prison? Review of: The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City / Angela Garcia. ("There’s a severe shortage of public treatment options in Mexico for people who use drugs and wish to stop. Small, clandestine private clinics fill the gap.")
Robert G. Kaiser. Unraveling a Repressive Regime. Review of: To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement / Benjamin Nathans.
Tim Judah. Arms Race in Ukraine: New drone technology is transforming the battlefield in Ukraine—and demonstrating the obsolescence of much Western weaponry. (Article)
Literature
Namwali Serpell. Keeping Up with Mrs. Jones. Review of: Fish Tales / Nettie Jones.
Michael Hofmann. Novels Without Food. Review of: Chevengur / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler, with an introduction by Robert Chandler and an essay by Vladimir Sharov -- The Foundation Pit / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and Olga Meerson, with notes and an afterword by Robert Chandler and Olga Meerson -- Happy Moscow / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler, Elizabeth Chandler, and others -- Soul / Andrey Platonov, translated from the Russian by Robert Chandler and Elizabeth Chandler with Katia Grigoruk, Angela Livingstone, Olga Meerson, and Eric Naiman, with an afterword by John Berger (all titles issued by New York Review Books).
Susan Neiman. The Conformist. Review of: The Director: a novel / Daniel Kehlmann, translated from the German by Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit Books).
Arts
Philip Clark. The Atonal Genie. Review of: Schoenberg: Why He Matters / Harvey Sachs.
Christopher Benfey. Anecdote of the Teapot: A teapot made in South Carolina during the 1760s by an enigmatic English émigré potter named John Bartlam provides an allegory for porcelain’s journey from the East. (Essay)
Science, Technology, Natural History
Tim Flannery. Electrome Dreams. Review of: We Are Electric: Inside the 200-Year Hunt for Our Body’s Bioelectric Code, and What the Future Holds / Sally Adee.
Jenny Uglow. Orchid Frenzy. Review of: The Lost Orchid: A Story of Victorian Plunder and Obsession / Sarah Bilston -- Saving Orchids: Stories of Species Survival in a Changing World / Philip Seaton and Lawrence W. Zettler (Kew Publishing/ University of Chicago Press).
Religion
Fintan O'Toole. Can the Church Evolve?: The big question for Pope Leo XIV is whether he will complete Pope Francis’s mission to make the Catholic Church less tyrannical. (Essay)
History, Politics, & Society
Colin Thubron. The Haven of Wilderness. Review of 4 books by Kapka Kassabova issued by Graywolf Press: Anima: A Wild Pastoral -- Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time -- To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace -- Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe. ("In a quartet of books about life in the mountains of southern Bulgaria and North Macedonia as they descend into Greece, Kapka Kassabova gives voice to the shepherds, nomads, horse breeders, dog breeders, villagers, and refugees who live there.")
Dawn Marie Paley. A Shelter or a Prison? Review of: The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City / Angela Garcia. ("There’s a severe shortage of public treatment options in Mexico for people who use drugs and wish to stop. Small, clandestine private clinics fill the gap.")
Robert G. Kaiser. Unraveling a Repressive Regime. Review of: To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement / Benjamin Nathans.
Tim Judah. Arms Race in Ukraine: New drone technology is transforming the battlefield in Ukraine—and demonstrating the obsolescence of much Western weaponry. (Article)
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Alasdair MacIntyre, 1928-2025
Alex Traub. NYT, 06/02/2025: Alasdair MacIntyre, Philosopher Who Saw a ‘New Dark Ages,’ Dies at 96.
"Alasdair MacIntyre, a philosopher who metamorphosed from a London Marxist into a Midwestern American Catholic during a decades-long quest to prove there was an objective foundation to moral virtue — a lonely project that struck many of his academic peers as anachronistic yet drew a large, varied and growing crowd of admirers — died on May 21.
"Moral beliefs are widely considered matters of private conscience — up for debate, of course, but not resolvable in any sort of final consensus. That is why, for example, people generally think teachers should guide students toward self-realization, rather than proselytize their own beliefs. The same neutrality is expected of lawyers, therapists, government officials and others.
"Mr. MacIntyre belonged to a different moral universe.
"In his best-known book, “After Virtue” (1981), he argued that thousands of years ago, the earliest Western philosophers and the Homeric myths generated “the tradition of the virtues,” which was treated as objective truth. Value neutrality, to Mr. MacIntyre, was the goal of “barbarians” and a sign of “the new dark ages which are already upon us.”
"His chief opponent was what he called “modern liberal individualism,” a category in which he included not just supporters of the Democratic Party but also conventional conservatives, leftists and even anarchists. All were guilty of “emotivism”: the belief that humanity was essentially a collection of autonomous individuals who selected their own principles based on inner thoughts or feelings.
"In “After Virtue,” he wrote that morality arose out of a belief in human telos — the ancient Greek notion of purpose being intrinsic to existence. People of the modern world, he said, had two choices: Follow Nietzsche in trying to honestly face a world without the traditional notion of a human telos, rendering moral thought baseless, or follow Aristotle and recover moral purpose by fostering a society dedicated to the cultivation of virtue.
"In a subsequent book, “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” (1988), Mr. MacIntyre provoked sharper criticism. His argument now promoted Roman Catholicism with Aquinas, not Aristotle, as its paragon of moral thought.
"The philosopher Martha Nussbaum wrote a memorable takedown in The New York Review of Books accusing Mr. MacIntyre of dropping some of his own principles — such as his devotion to local traditions — when discussing Aristotle, Augustine and the pope. What really interested Mr. MacIntyre, she argued, was not reason but authority: the ability of the Catholic Church to secure wide agreement, and, by extension, order.
"In a review of “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” published in The Times Literary Supplement, Thomas Nagel wrote, “MacIntyre professes to be freeing us from blindness, but he is really asking for the return of a blindness to the difficulty of moral thought that it has been one of the great achievements of ethical theory to escape.”
"For decades, no single tendency seemed to define readers who took inspiration from Mr. MacIntyre’s work. There were heterodox Marxists, the skeptic of liberalism Christopher Lasch and the former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
"But more recently, one constituency claimed Mr. MacIntyre’s work most completely and prominently: the Trump-supporting, religious, anti-consumerist and illiberal right. Two leading commentators of this world, Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher, have written books that pay tribute to Mr. MacIntyre.
"During a lecture at Notre Dame, Mr. MacIntyre deplored becoming part of an ideological battle of his own time.
“The moment you think of yourself as a liberal or a conservative,” he said, “you’re done for.”"
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/macintyrealasdair
Alex Traub. NYT, 06/02/2025: Alasdair MacIntyre, Philosopher Who Saw a ‘New Dark Ages,’ Dies at 96.
"Alasdair MacIntyre, a philosopher who metamorphosed from a London Marxist into a Midwestern American Catholic during a decades-long quest to prove there was an objective foundation to moral virtue — a lonely project that struck many of his academic peers as anachronistic yet drew a large, varied and growing crowd of admirers — died on May 21.
"Moral beliefs are widely considered matters of private conscience — up for debate, of course, but not resolvable in any sort of final consensus. That is why, for example, people generally think teachers should guide students toward self-realization, rather than proselytize their own beliefs. The same neutrality is expected of lawyers, therapists, government officials and others.
"Mr. MacIntyre belonged to a different moral universe.
"In his best-known book, “After Virtue” (1981), he argued that thousands of years ago, the earliest Western philosophers and the Homeric myths generated “the tradition of the virtues,” which was treated as objective truth. Value neutrality, to Mr. MacIntyre, was the goal of “barbarians” and a sign of “the new dark ages which are already upon us.”
"His chief opponent was what he called “modern liberal individualism,” a category in which he included not just supporters of the Democratic Party but also conventional conservatives, leftists and even anarchists. All were guilty of “emotivism”: the belief that humanity was essentially a collection of autonomous individuals who selected their own principles based on inner thoughts or feelings.
"In “After Virtue,” he wrote that morality arose out of a belief in human telos — the ancient Greek notion of purpose being intrinsic to existence. People of the modern world, he said, had two choices: Follow Nietzsche in trying to honestly face a world without the traditional notion of a human telos, rendering moral thought baseless, or follow Aristotle and recover moral purpose by fostering a society dedicated to the cultivation of virtue.
"In a subsequent book, “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” (1988), Mr. MacIntyre provoked sharper criticism. His argument now promoted Roman Catholicism with Aquinas, not Aristotle, as its paragon of moral thought.
"The philosopher Martha Nussbaum wrote a memorable takedown in The New York Review of Books accusing Mr. MacIntyre of dropping some of his own principles — such as his devotion to local traditions — when discussing Aristotle, Augustine and the pope. What really interested Mr. MacIntyre, she argued, was not reason but authority: the ability of the Catholic Church to secure wide agreement, and, by extension, order.
"In a review of “Whose Justice? Which Rationality?” published in The Times Literary Supplement, Thomas Nagel wrote, “MacIntyre professes to be freeing us from blindness, but he is really asking for the return of a blindness to the difficulty of moral thought that it has been one of the great achievements of ethical theory to escape.”
"For decades, no single tendency seemed to define readers who took inspiration from Mr. MacIntyre’s work. There were heterodox Marxists, the skeptic of liberalism Christopher Lasch and the former Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum.
"But more recently, one constituency claimed Mr. MacIntyre’s work most completely and prominently: the Trump-supporting, religious, anti-consumerist and illiberal right. Two leading commentators of this world, Patrick Deneen and Rod Dreher, have written books that pay tribute to Mr. MacIntyre.
"During a lecture at Notre Dame, Mr. MacIntyre deplored becoming part of an ideological battle of his own time.
“The moment you think of yourself as a liberal or a conservative,” he said, “you’re done for.”"
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/macintyrealasdair
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June 2 updates:
The Critic (UK) June 2: new academia novel >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 2: Mobius book, Indonesian micro libraries, atomic energy, William Blake >137 featherbear:
NYT June 2: Susan Choi's Flashlight >131 featherbear:
Plus first time June entries for Harper's, Southwest Review, NYRB June 12, belated May entry for Commonweal
June index >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) June 2: new academia novel >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 2: Mobius book, Indonesian micro libraries, atomic energy, William Blake >137 featherbear:
NYT June 2: Susan Choi's Flashlight >131 featherbear:
Plus first time June entries for Harper's, Southwest Review, NYRB June 12, belated May entry for Commonweal
June index >130 featherbear:
145featherbear
June 3 2025 updates:
Atlantic June 3: Susan Choi's Flashlight >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 2: GenZ as non-readers to their kids June 3: far right in publishing; Charlottesville 2017 >137 featherbear:
NYT June 3: The Catch, a thriller; fantasy novel about Nazis in a US hotel; Palestinian mother's memoir >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 3: year without sex; a novel set in Ukraine >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 3: Susan Choi's Flashlight >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 2: GenZ as non-readers to their kids June 3: far right in publishing; Charlottesville 2017 >137 featherbear:
NYT June 3: The Catch, a thriller; fantasy novel about Nazis in a US hotel; Palestinian mother's memoir >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 3: year without sex; a novel set in Ukraine >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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Jason Koebler. 404media.com, 06/02/2025: Teachers Are Not OK. "AI, ChatGPT, and LLMs "have absolutely blown up what I try to accomplish with my teaching."
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Edmund White, 1940-2025
Fred A. Bernstein. 06/04/2025: Edmund White, Pioneer of Queer Literature, Is Dead at 85.
"Mr. White’s output was almost equally divided between fiction and nonfiction. Many of his books were critical successes, and several were best-sellers. The Chicago Tribune labeled him “the godfather of queer lit.”
"He was a star almost from the beginning. The New York Times called “Forgetting Elena” (1973), about the rituals of gay life on a fictionalized Fire Island, “an astonishing first novel, obsessively fussy, and yet uncannily beautiful.” His second novel, “Nocturnes for the King of Naples” (1978), took the form of letters from a young gay man to his deceased ex-lover.
"“A Boy’s Own Story” (1982), a tale of coming out set in the 1950s, was narrated by a teenager who bore more than a passing resemblance to a young Mr. White. His other semi-autobiographical novels, “The Beautiful Room Is Empty” (1988) and “The Farewell Symphony” (1997), follow the same unnamed protagonist into adulthood during the 1960s, then through the horrors of AIDS as he approaches middle age.
"His nonfiction works included a number of memoirs. “My Lives” (2005), one of his best-reviewed books, chronicles his first 65 years with chapter titles that include “My Shrinks,” “My Hustlers” and “My Blonds.” He zeroed in on his life in 1960s and ’70s New York with “City Boy” (2009), and on his life away from New York with “Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris” (2014).
"Earlier this year, he published “The Loves of My Life” — a “sex memoir,” as he called it — describing encounters with some of the 3,000 men he said he had slept with. In a review, Alexandra Jacobs of The Times called it X-rated, “as in explicit, yes, but also excavatory and excellent.”
"His nonfiction works also include biographies of the French authors Jean Genet, Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud.
"The “Joy of Gay Sex” (1977), a how-to based on the 1972 best seller “The Joy of Sex,” was a groundbreaking effort that became somewhat obsolete once fears of H.I.V. made safe sex far more common. Its co-author was Charles Silverstein, a therapist who had been treating Mr. White until a publisher suggested that they collaborate, not knowing they were already acquainted.
"Other nonfiction books included “States of Desire” (1980), a travelogue of gay America on the eve of the AIDS epidemic. Mr. White visited a dozen U.S. cities and regions, where old and new acquaintances helped him investigate gay life. But he later had second thoughts about it. In an afterword to a kind of literary sequel, “States of Desire Revisited” (2014), he noted that the first book gives “a strangely lopsided view of American gay life.”"
The NYT obit leaves out his b. date; taken from White's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/whiteedmund
Juno Carmel. WaPo, 06/04/2025: Edmund White, acclaimed novelist of gay life, dies at 85. "Across a wide-ranging literary career, he also co-wrote a sex manual for gay men and was a Pulitzer finalist for his biography of author Jean Genet."
Sian Cain. Guardian, 06/04/2025: Edmund White, novelist and great chronicler of gay life, dies aged 85.
Guardian, 06/04/2025: Edmund White remembered: ‘He was the patron saint of queer literature.’ "Colm Tóibín, Alan Hollinghurst, Adam Mars-Jones and more recall the high style and libidinous freedom of a writer who ‘was not a gateway to gay literature but a main destination.’"
Neil Bartlett. Guardian, 06/04/2025: Where to start with: Edmund White. "After the news of White’s death, here is a guide to a foundational writer of gay lives and elder statesman of American queer literary fiction."
Gary Shteyngart. Atlantic, 06/04/2025: The Writer Who Knew the Joys of Sex. "Edmund White, who died yesterday at 85, infused his life with as much pleasure as he did his writing."
Yiyun Li. Yale Review, 06/06/2025: Edmund White: My friend in literature, laughter, and grief.
Garth Greenwell. To a Green Thought (Substack), 06/05/2025: On Edmund White (1940-2025). "Remembering a great-hearted man."
Fred A. Bernstein. 06/04/2025: Edmund White, Pioneer of Queer Literature, Is Dead at 85.
"Mr. White’s output was almost equally divided between fiction and nonfiction. Many of his books were critical successes, and several were best-sellers. The Chicago Tribune labeled him “the godfather of queer lit.”
"He was a star almost from the beginning. The New York Times called “Forgetting Elena” (1973), about the rituals of gay life on a fictionalized Fire Island, “an astonishing first novel, obsessively fussy, and yet uncannily beautiful.” His second novel, “Nocturnes for the King of Naples” (1978), took the form of letters from a young gay man to his deceased ex-lover.
"“A Boy’s Own Story” (1982), a tale of coming out set in the 1950s, was narrated by a teenager who bore more than a passing resemblance to a young Mr. White. His other semi-autobiographical novels, “The Beautiful Room Is Empty” (1988) and “The Farewell Symphony” (1997), follow the same unnamed protagonist into adulthood during the 1960s, then through the horrors of AIDS as he approaches middle age.
"His nonfiction works included a number of memoirs. “My Lives” (2005), one of his best-reviewed books, chronicles his first 65 years with chapter titles that include “My Shrinks,” “My Hustlers” and “My Blonds.” He zeroed in on his life in 1960s and ’70s New York with “City Boy” (2009), and on his life away from New York with “Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris” (2014).
"Earlier this year, he published “The Loves of My Life” — a “sex memoir,” as he called it — describing encounters with some of the 3,000 men he said he had slept with. In a review, Alexandra Jacobs of The Times called it X-rated, “as in explicit, yes, but also excavatory and excellent.”
"His nonfiction works also include biographies of the French authors Jean Genet, Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud.
"The “Joy of Gay Sex” (1977), a how-to based on the 1972 best seller “The Joy of Sex,” was a groundbreaking effort that became somewhat obsolete once fears of H.I.V. made safe sex far more common. Its co-author was Charles Silverstein, a therapist who had been treating Mr. White until a publisher suggested that they collaborate, not knowing they were already acquainted.
"Other nonfiction books included “States of Desire” (1980), a travelogue of gay America on the eve of the AIDS epidemic. Mr. White visited a dozen U.S. cities and regions, where old and new acquaintances helped him investigate gay life. But he later had second thoughts about it. In an afterword to a kind of literary sequel, “States of Desire Revisited” (2014), he noted that the first book gives “a strangely lopsided view of American gay life.”"
The NYT obit leaves out his b. date; taken from White's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/whiteedmund
Juno Carmel. WaPo, 06/04/2025: Edmund White, acclaimed novelist of gay life, dies at 85. "Across a wide-ranging literary career, he also co-wrote a sex manual for gay men and was a Pulitzer finalist for his biography of author Jean Genet."
Sian Cain. Guardian, 06/04/2025: Edmund White, novelist and great chronicler of gay life, dies aged 85.
Guardian, 06/04/2025: Edmund White remembered: ‘He was the patron saint of queer literature.’ "Colm Tóibín, Alan Hollinghurst, Adam Mars-Jones and more recall the high style and libidinous freedom of a writer who ‘was not a gateway to gay literature but a main destination.’"
Neil Bartlett. Guardian, 06/04/2025: Where to start with: Edmund White. "After the news of White’s death, here is a guide to a foundational writer of gay lives and elder statesman of American queer literary fiction."
Gary Shteyngart. Atlantic, 06/04/2025: The Writer Who Knew the Joys of Sex. "Edmund White, who died yesterday at 85, infused his life with as much pleasure as he did his writing."
Yiyun Li. Yale Review, 06/06/2025: Edmund White: My friend in literature, laughter, and grief.
Garth Greenwell. To a Green Thought (Substack), 06/05/2025: On Edmund White (1940-2025). "Remembering a great-hearted man."
148featherbear
June 4 2025 updates:
The Critic June 4: Irish potato famine >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 3: Hala Alyan memoir interview; lesbian mothers novel; interview with Melissa Febos -- June 4: Buckley bio; Graham Swift story collection; creatures that survive >137 featherbear:
LARB June 3: Charles Sumner -- June 4: Putin & ideology >141 featherbear:
NYT June 4: are rivers alive? >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 3: Wally Lamb's new novel -- June 4: Edward Hirsch's memoir >132 featherbear:
June Index >130 featherbear:
The Critic June 4: Irish potato famine >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 3: Hala Alyan memoir interview; lesbian mothers novel; interview with Melissa Febos -- June 4: Buckley bio; Graham Swift story collection; creatures that survive >137 featherbear:
LARB June 3: Charles Sumner -- June 4: Putin & ideology >141 featherbear:
NYT June 4: are rivers alive? >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 3: Wally Lamb's new novel -- June 4: Edward Hirsch's memoir >132 featherbear:
June Index >130 featherbear:
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Public Books June 2025
Jessica Taylor. 06/03/2025: Time Well Spent: Beyond Success and Failure in Romancelandia and Academia. Review of: Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success / Christine Larson.
Sharanya. 06/04/2025: Who Feeds London? Review of: London Feeds Itself / Edited by Jonathan Nunn.
Jeewon Yoo. 06/05/2025: B-Sides: Anita Loos’s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Regarding Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Anita Loos.
Emanuel Moss. 06/10/2025: Toward a Realpolitik for AI. Review of: AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference / Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor --Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough / Paula Bialski -- Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us / Gary Marcus.
Kaitlin Bui. 06/11/2025: “The Door’s Still Locked”: Fiction after Fascism. Review of: Clean / Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes -- Verdigris / Michele Mari, translated from the Italian by Brian Robert Moore.
Keith Woodhouse. 06/12/2025: After the Deluge: What Future for Climate Fiction? Review of: The Deluge: a novel / Stephen Markley.
Jenny L. Davis & Hayoung Seo. 06/17/2025: It’s Not Optimal. Review of: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World / Allison Pugh -- The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness / Leslie Valiant -- Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI / Ethan Mollick --AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own / Verity Harding.
Emma Pask. 06/19/2025: Lone Star Futures. Review of: Texas: An American History / Benjamin Heber Johnson.
Hannah Weaver. 06/26/2025: Time Interpolated. "Disruptive and restorative, interpolation is the paradoxical form of life, literature, and time itself."
Jessica Taylor. 06/03/2025: Time Well Spent: Beyond Success and Failure in Romancelandia and Academia. Review of: Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success / Christine Larson.
Sharanya. 06/04/2025: Who Feeds London? Review of: London Feeds Itself / Edited by Jonathan Nunn.
Jeewon Yoo. 06/05/2025: B-Sides: Anita Loos’s “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.” Regarding Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Anita Loos.
Emanuel Moss. 06/10/2025: Toward a Realpolitik for AI. Review of: AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference / Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor --Middle Tech: Software Work and the Culture of Good Enough / Paula Bialski -- Taming Silicon Valley: How We Can Ensure That AI Works for Us / Gary Marcus.
Kaitlin Bui. 06/11/2025: “The Door’s Still Locked”: Fiction after Fascism. Review of: Clean / Alia Trabucco Zerán, translated from the Spanish by Sophie Hughes -- Verdigris / Michele Mari, translated from the Italian by Brian Robert Moore.
Keith Woodhouse. 06/12/2025: After the Deluge: What Future for Climate Fiction? Review of: The Deluge: a novel / Stephen Markley.
Jenny L. Davis & Hayoung Seo. 06/17/2025: It’s Not Optimal. Review of: The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World / Allison Pugh -- The Importance of Being Educable: A New Theory of Human Uniqueness / Leslie Valiant -- Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI / Ethan Mollick --AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own / Verity Harding.
Emma Pask. 06/19/2025: Lone Star Futures. Review of: Texas: An American History / Benjamin Heber Johnson.
Hannah Weaver. 06/26/2025: Time Interpolated. "Disruptive and restorative, interpolation is the paradoxical form of life, literature, and time itself."
150featherbear
LitHub June 2025
Tom Comitta. 06/04/2025: What Do Americans Really Want to Read? We (Might) Have the Answer. Excerpt (?) from People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels / Tom Comitta (Columbia University Press).
Tim Weed. 06/04/2025: What Does a Million Years Mean to You? Five Books That Explore Deep Time. Recommends: The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet / Robert M. Hazen -- Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World / Marcia Bjornerud -- Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds / Thomas Halliday -- The World Without Us / Alan Weisman -- The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions / Peter Brannen. (Weed is the author of The Afterlife Project: A Novel)
Evelyn McDonnell. 06/05/2025: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? On Notes to John and the Selling of Didion’s Privacy. Regarding Notes to John / Joan Didion.
Nan C. Da. 06/10/2025: Tyranny as Tragedy: On King Lear, Maoist China and the Unpredictable Nature of Power. Excerpt from The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear / Nan Z. Da (Princeton University Press).
Emily Hauser. 06/13/2025: Finding Briseis: On Resurrecting a Forgotten Woman from Homer’s Iliad. An excerpt from: Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It (UK title: Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It) / Emily Hauser.
Donovan Hohn. 06/13/2025: “The Finch Interested Me…” In Memory of Lewis H. Lapham and the Magazine He Founded.
Bernd Roeck. 06/16/2025: How Medieval Monks and Scribes Helped Preserve Classical Culture. Excerpt from: The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance / Bernd Roeck.
Donna Seaman. 06/18/2025: Why Read: Seven Books About Our Passion and Need for Reading.
Ira Wells. 06/18/2025: Welcome to Pensacola, Florida, America’s Book-Banning Capital. Excerpt from: On Book Banning: Or How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy / Ira Wells.
Kirsty McHugh & Ian Scott. 06/20/2025: How Four Literary Icons Chose the Pen Names That Made Them Famous. Excerpt from their Pen Names.
Ed Simon. 06/23/2025: The Dark Magic of Words: Why Fascism and Illiberalism Are So Seductive to Writers. A look at Eduard Limonov, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Yukio Mishima, and Others.
David Crystal. 06/27/2025: “Bookworm, Cliché, Deadline…” And Other Unexpected Etymologies. Excerpt from: Bookish Words & Their Surprising Stories / David Crystal.
Tom Comitta. 06/04/2025: What Do Americans Really Want to Read? We (Might) Have the Answer. Excerpt (?) from People’s Choice Literature: The Most Wanted and Unwanted Novels / Tom Comitta (Columbia University Press).
Tim Weed. 06/04/2025: What Does a Million Years Mean to You? Five Books That Explore Deep Time. Recommends: The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years, from Stardust to Living Planet / Robert M. Hazen -- Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World / Marcia Bjornerud -- Otherlands: A Journey Through Earth’s Extinct Worlds / Thomas Halliday -- The World Without Us / Alan Weisman -- The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions / Peter Brannen. (Weed is the author of The Afterlife Project: A Novel)
Evelyn McDonnell. 06/05/2025: Who Thought This Was a Good Idea? On Notes to John and the Selling of Didion’s Privacy. Regarding Notes to John / Joan Didion.
Nan C. Da. 06/10/2025: Tyranny as Tragedy: On King Lear, Maoist China and the Unpredictable Nature of Power. Excerpt from The Chinese Tragedy of King Lear / Nan Z. Da (Princeton University Press).
Emily Hauser. 06/13/2025: Finding Briseis: On Resurrecting a Forgotten Woman from Homer’s Iliad. An excerpt from: Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It (UK title: Mythica: A New History of Homer’s World, Through the Women Written Out of It) / Emily Hauser.
Donovan Hohn. 06/13/2025: “The Finch Interested Me…” In Memory of Lewis H. Lapham and the Magazine He Founded.
Bernd Roeck. 06/16/2025: How Medieval Monks and Scribes Helped Preserve Classical Culture. Excerpt from: The World at First Light: A New History of the Renaissance / Bernd Roeck.
Donna Seaman. 06/18/2025: Why Read: Seven Books About Our Passion and Need for Reading.
Ira Wells. 06/18/2025: Welcome to Pensacola, Florida, America’s Book-Banning Capital. Excerpt from: On Book Banning: Or How the New Censorship Consensus Trivializes Art and Undermines Democracy / Ira Wells.
Kirsty McHugh & Ian Scott. 06/20/2025: How Four Literary Icons Chose the Pen Names That Made Them Famous. Excerpt from their Pen Names.
Ed Simon. 06/23/2025: The Dark Magic of Words: Why Fascism and Illiberalism Are So Seductive to Writers. A look at Eduard Limonov, Gabriele D'Annunzio, Yukio Mishima, and Others.
David Crystal. 06/27/2025: “Bookworm, Cliché, Deadline…” And Other Unexpected Etymologies. Excerpt from: Bookish Words & Their Surprising Stories / David Crystal.
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TLS June 6, 2025|No. 6375
Featured
Tom Seymour Evans. Fame without readers: Gertrude Stein won recognition for one masterwork, but struggled to find an audience for her oeuvre. Review of: GERTRUDE STEIN: An afterlife / Francesca Wade.
David Gallagher. Literary knight errant: A tribute to Mario Vargas Llosa, chronicler of failed utopias. (Essay)
Mia Levitin. Topicality versus intimacy: A state-of-the-world novel set in County Clare. Review of: RIPENESS: a novel / Sarah Moss.
Joan C. Williams. Facebook in the firing line: A whistleblower on the company’s relationship with morality. Review of: CARELESS PEOPLE: A story of where I used to work / Sarah Wynn-Williams.
Mary Beard. The Romans in Colchester (from the TLS current issue landing page).
NB: Vale Raritan, Poetry and publishers, Toni Morrison’s books, Correspondence.
Literature & Bibliography
James Wadell. The rise of how-to: Practical knowledge from the age of the manuscript onwards. Review of: READING PRACTICE: The pursuit of natural knowledge from manuscript to print / Melissa Reynolds.
J.S. Barnes. The slowest burn in horror: Salem’s Lot at 50. (Essay)
James Campbell. A life off the grid: A Beat poet and Zen ecologist. Review of: Gary Snyder: ESSENTIAL PROSE / Gary Snyder (Library of America).
Lauren Booker. To the lighthouse: A dark tale of isolation, madness and misogyny. Review of: THE TOWER OF LOVE / Rachilde; translated by Jennifer Higgins.
Alexander Leissle. Not a political person: The compromises and self-justifications of G. W. Pabst. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit Books).
Keith Hopper. Different class: Two fragile relationships played out in two different eras. Review of: GHOST WEDDING / David Park.
Tim Parks. If you get my meaning: Judging the merits of literary juries. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: THE IMPOSSIBLE THING / Belinda Bauer. ("An oological whodunnit")
In Brief Review of: MADAME SOSOSTRIS AND THE FESTIVAL FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED / Ben Okri (Apollo).
Arts
Jeremy Allen. The song remains the same?: Jacques Brel, sophisticated singer-songwriter with global appeal. Review of: NE ME QUITTE PAS / Maya Angela Smith (Duke University Press).
Colm Tóibín. Darkness visible: Colm Tóibín meditates on Pat Steir’s painting ‘Night.’ (Essay)
In Brief Review of: DEAR ORSON WELLES AND OTHER ESSAYS Mark Cousins.
In Brief Review of: MAFALDA / Quinto; translated by Frank Wynne (Elsewhere Editions). ("An Argentinian cartoon gang with old heads on young shoulders").
Science & Technology
Charles Foster. The tree of life: Mass extinctions and evolutionary leaps, from bacteria to Homo sapiens. Review of: THE TREE OF LIFE: Solving science’s greatest puzzle / Max Telford (John Murray).
Rebecca Foster. Meeting a mint-sauce worm: Climate change threatens the delicate bonds between species. Review of: TO HAVE OR TO HOLD: Nature’s hidden relationships / Sophie Revell.
Travis Elborough. Railway children: What trains mean to Britons. Review of: BRADLEY’S RAILWAY GUIDE: A journey through two centuries of British railway history, 1825-2025 / Simon Bradley -- SLOW TRAINS AROUND BRITAIN: Notes from a 4,088-mile adventure on 143 rides / Tom Chesshyre (Summersdale).
History, Politics, & Society
Emily Baughan. Empire builders: The forgotten female pioneers of international relations. Review of: ERASED: A history of international thought without men / Patricia Owens.
Jonathan Clark. Power plays: Why there is no effective rationale for free speech. Review of: WHAT IS FREE SPEECH?: The history of a dangerous idea / Fara Dabhoiwala.
Leo Lasdun. Fakirs and frauds: The celebrity mystics who captivated Europe in the interwar years. Review of: HOLY MEN OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC AGE: A forgotten history of the occult / Raphael Cormack.
Philip Ball. Techno dystopia, libertarian hell: Contempt for democracy and the perversion of classical liberalism. Review of: MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER: AI overlords, space empires, and Silicon Valley’s crusade to control the fate of humanity / Adam Becker -- HAYEK’S BASTARDS: The neoliberal roots of the populist right / Quinn Slobodian.
In Brief Review of: EPIC EVENTS: Classics and the politics of time in the United States since 9/11 / Sasha-Mae Eccleston.
In Brief Review of: OUTRAGE / Ian Nairn; With an introduction by Travis Elborough (Reissue Notting Hill Editions). ("Revisiting Ian Nairn's rage against ‘subtopia’")
In Brief Review of: SEVEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA / Linda Gordon.
Featured
Tom Seymour Evans. Fame without readers: Gertrude Stein won recognition for one masterwork, but struggled to find an audience for her oeuvre. Review of: GERTRUDE STEIN: An afterlife / Francesca Wade.
David Gallagher. Literary knight errant: A tribute to Mario Vargas Llosa, chronicler of failed utopias. (Essay)
Mia Levitin. Topicality versus intimacy: A state-of-the-world novel set in County Clare. Review of: RIPENESS: a novel / Sarah Moss.
Joan C. Williams. Facebook in the firing line: A whistleblower on the company’s relationship with morality. Review of: CARELESS PEOPLE: A story of where I used to work / Sarah Wynn-Williams.
Mary Beard. The Romans in Colchester (from the TLS current issue landing page).
NB: Vale Raritan, Poetry and publishers, Toni Morrison’s books, Correspondence.
Literature & Bibliography
James Wadell. The rise of how-to: Practical knowledge from the age of the manuscript onwards. Review of: READING PRACTICE: The pursuit of natural knowledge from manuscript to print / Melissa Reynolds.
J.S. Barnes. The slowest burn in horror: Salem’s Lot at 50. (Essay)
James Campbell. A life off the grid: A Beat poet and Zen ecologist. Review of: Gary Snyder: ESSENTIAL PROSE / Gary Snyder (Library of America).
Lauren Booker. To the lighthouse: A dark tale of isolation, madness and misogyny. Review of: THE TOWER OF LOVE / Rachilde; translated by Jennifer Higgins.
Alexander Leissle. Not a political person: The compromises and self-justifications of G. W. Pabst. Review of: The Director / Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Ross Benjamin (S&S/Summit Books).
Keith Hopper. Different class: Two fragile relationships played out in two different eras. Review of: GHOST WEDDING / David Park.
Tim Parks. If you get my meaning: Judging the merits of literary juries. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: THE IMPOSSIBLE THING / Belinda Bauer. ("An oological whodunnit")
In Brief Review of: MADAME SOSOSTRIS AND THE FESTIVAL FOR THE BROKEN-HEARTED / Ben Okri (Apollo).
Arts
Jeremy Allen. The song remains the same?: Jacques Brel, sophisticated singer-songwriter with global appeal. Review of: NE ME QUITTE PAS / Maya Angela Smith (Duke University Press).
Colm Tóibín. Darkness visible: Colm Tóibín meditates on Pat Steir’s painting ‘Night.’ (Essay)
In Brief Review of: DEAR ORSON WELLES AND OTHER ESSAYS Mark Cousins.
In Brief Review of: MAFALDA / Quinto; translated by Frank Wynne (Elsewhere Editions). ("An Argentinian cartoon gang with old heads on young shoulders").
Science & Technology
Charles Foster. The tree of life: Mass extinctions and evolutionary leaps, from bacteria to Homo sapiens. Review of: THE TREE OF LIFE: Solving science’s greatest puzzle / Max Telford (John Murray).
Rebecca Foster. Meeting a mint-sauce worm: Climate change threatens the delicate bonds between species. Review of: TO HAVE OR TO HOLD: Nature’s hidden relationships / Sophie Revell.
Travis Elborough. Railway children: What trains mean to Britons. Review of: BRADLEY’S RAILWAY GUIDE: A journey through two centuries of British railway history, 1825-2025 / Simon Bradley -- SLOW TRAINS AROUND BRITAIN: Notes from a 4,088-mile adventure on 143 rides / Tom Chesshyre (Summersdale).
History, Politics, & Society
Emily Baughan. Empire builders: The forgotten female pioneers of international relations. Review of: ERASED: A history of international thought without men / Patricia Owens.
Jonathan Clark. Power plays: Why there is no effective rationale for free speech. Review of: WHAT IS FREE SPEECH?: The history of a dangerous idea / Fara Dabhoiwala.
Leo Lasdun. Fakirs and frauds: The celebrity mystics who captivated Europe in the interwar years. Review of: HOLY MEN OF THE ELECTROMAGNETIC AGE: A forgotten history of the occult / Raphael Cormack.
Philip Ball. Techno dystopia, libertarian hell: Contempt for democracy and the perversion of classical liberalism. Review of: MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER: AI overlords, space empires, and Silicon Valley’s crusade to control the fate of humanity / Adam Becker -- HAYEK’S BASTARDS: The neoliberal roots of the populist right / Quinn Slobodian.
In Brief Review of: EPIC EVENTS: Classics and the politics of time in the United States since 9/11 / Sasha-Mae Eccleston.
In Brief Review of: OUTRAGE / Ian Nairn; With an introduction by Travis Elborough (Reissue Notting Hill Editions). ("Revisiting Ian Nairn's rage against ‘subtopia’")
In Brief Review of: SEVEN SOCIAL MOVEMENTS THAT CHANGED AMERICA / Linda Gordon.
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Literary Review (UK) June 2025
Piers Brendon. Land of Dopes & Tories. Review of: The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson / Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd) (Pallas Athene).
Zoe Guttenplan. To the Postbox. Review of: The Uncollected Letters of Virginia Woolf / Stephen Barkway & Stuart N Clarke (edd).
Richard V. Reeves. Guys & Trolls. Review of: Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere / James Bloodworth.
Kate Loveman. Publishing Pepys.
Carl Miller. Return of the Mac. Review of: Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Pratinav Anil. From Paris to Pondicherry. Review of: Glorious Failure: The Forgotten History of French Imperialism in India / Robert Ivermee (Hurst).
Tanya Harrod. Cut from the Same Canvas. Review of: Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John / Judith Mackrell (Picador).
Piers Brendon. Land of Dopes & Tories. Review of: The Benson Diaries: Selections from the Diary of Arthur Christopher Benson / Eamon Duffy & Ronald Hyam (edd) (Pallas Athene).
Zoe Guttenplan. To the Postbox. Review of: The Uncollected Letters of Virginia Woolf / Stephen Barkway & Stuart N Clarke (edd).
Richard V. Reeves. Guys & Trolls. Review of: Lost Boys: A Personal Journey Through the Manosphere / James Bloodworth.
Kate Loveman. Publishing Pepys.
Carl Miller. Return of the Mac. Review of: Apple in China: The Capture of the World’s Greatest Company / Patrick McGee.
Pratinav Anil. From Paris to Pondicherry. Review of: Glorious Failure: The Forgotten History of French Imperialism in India / Robert Ivermee (Hurst).
Tanya Harrod. Cut from the Same Canvas. Review of: Artists, Siblings, Visionaries: The Lives and Loves of Gwen and Augustus John / Judith Mackrell (Picador).
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Colin Vandenburg. n+1, spring 2025, issue 50: Crise en Abyme: Quiet please: critics at work. Review of: Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study / John Guillory -- On Close Reading / John Guillory -- Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies / Jonathan Kramnick -- Criticism and Politics: A Polemical Introduction / Bruce Robbins.
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David J. Gunkel. Noema, 06/04/2025: AI Signals The Death Of The Author. "The meaning of a piece of writing does not depend on the identity of the author, even if the author is not human."
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New Yorker June 2025
James Marcus. 06/02/2025: How Margaret Fuller Set Minds on Fire. Review of: Margaret Fuller: Collected Writings (LOA #388) (Library of America) / Margaret Fuller; Noelle Baker & Megan Marshall, editors.
Malcolm Gladwell. 06/02/2025: What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime. Review of: Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence / Jens Ludwig.
Cal Newport. 06/03/2025: What Isaac Asimov Reveals About Living with A.I. Regarding I, Robot / Isaac Asimov.
Charlie Tyson. 06/04/2025: Alison Bechdel and the Search for the Beginner’s Mind. Review of: Spent: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel (with a brief survey of her earlier work).
Rachel Morris. 06/05/2025: Why Did New Zealand Turn on Jacinda Ardern? Regarding A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir / Jacinda Ardern.
Richard Brody. 06/06/2025: The Sixties Come Back to Life in “Everything Is Now.” Review of: Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop / J. Hoberman.
Casey Cep et al. 06/06/2025: What We’re Reading This Summer: Mega-Reads. "New Yorker writers on long, immersive books that are worth the plunge."
Danielle Ofri. 06/07/2025: Why Do Doctors Write?
Dayna Tortorici. 06/09/2025: What Did the Pop Culture of the Two-Thousands Do to Millennial Women? Review of: Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
Merve Emre. 06/16/2025: The History of Advice Columns Is a History of Eavesdropping and Judging. Taking off from a review of ‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’: Letters on Love & Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column / Mary Beth Norton (Princeton University Press).
S.C. Cornell. 06/16/2025: So You Want to Be a Genius. Review of: The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea / Helen Lewis. see also the review in TLS June 13 >173 featherbear:
E. Tammy Kim. 06/16/2025: The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims. Review of: Korean Nuclear Diaspora: Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan (Korean Communities across the World) / Yuko Takahashi (Lexington Books).
Katy Waldman. 06/17/2025: James Frey’s New Cancelled-Guy Sex Novel Is as Bad as It Sounds. Review of: Next To Heaven: A Novel / James Frey.
Catherine Lacey, interviewer Merve Emre. 06/17/2025: Catherine Lacey’s Infinite Regress. "The novelist on her unclassifiable new work, “The Möbius Book”; the limits of autobiography; and the appeal of multiplicity."
Joshua Rothman. 06/17/2025: What’s Happening to Reading?
Anne Enright. 06/18/2025: Anne Enright’s Literary Journeys to Australia and New Zealand. Recommended: Monkey Grip: A Novel / Helen Garner -- The Forrests: A Novel / Emily Perkins -- The Golden Age: A Novel / Joan London.
Elizabeth Kolbert. 06/23/2025: Do We Need Another Green Revolution? Review of: We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate / Michael Grunwald -- How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food / Vacla Simil.
Jia Tolentino. 06/23/2025: Are Young People Having Enough Sex? Review of: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century / Louise Perry -- The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future / Carter Sherman.
Sue Halpern. 06/25/2025: A Summer Reading List of Lighthearted Mysteries. "reassuring and riveting": The Thursday Murder Club / Richard Osman -- Death and Croissants / Ian Moore -- "The Charles Lenox Mysteries" by Charles Finch ("there are more than a dozen books in this series, which stretches from 1850 to 1878") -- The Word Is Murder / Anthony Horowitz (part of a series which I very much enjoy).
Casey Cep. 06/28/2025: What I Learned from My Mother and the U.S. Postal Service. Regarding Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home / Stephen Starring Grant.
James Marcus. 06/02/2025: How Margaret Fuller Set Minds on Fire. Review of: Margaret Fuller: Collected Writings (LOA #388) (Library of America) / Margaret Fuller; Noelle Baker & Megan Marshall, editors.
Malcolm Gladwell. 06/02/2025: What We Get Wrong About Violent Crime. Review of: Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence / Jens Ludwig.
Cal Newport. 06/03/2025: What Isaac Asimov Reveals About Living with A.I. Regarding I, Robot / Isaac Asimov.
Charlie Tyson. 06/04/2025: Alison Bechdel and the Search for the Beginner’s Mind. Review of: Spent: A Comic Novel / Alison Bechdel (with a brief survey of her earlier work).
Rachel Morris. 06/05/2025: Why Did New Zealand Turn on Jacinda Ardern? Regarding A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir / Jacinda Ardern.
Richard Brody. 06/06/2025: The Sixties Come Back to Life in “Everything Is Now.” Review of: Everything Is Now: The 1960s New York Avant-Garde Primal Happenings, Underground Movies, Radical Pop / J. Hoberman.
Casey Cep et al. 06/06/2025: What We’re Reading This Summer: Mega-Reads. "New Yorker writers on long, immersive books that are worth the plunge."
Danielle Ofri. 06/07/2025: Why Do Doctors Write?
Dayna Tortorici. 06/09/2025: What Did the Pop Culture of the Two-Thousands Do to Millennial Women? Review of: Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves / Sophie Gilbert.
Merve Emre. 06/16/2025: The History of Advice Columns Is a History of Eavesdropping and Judging. Taking off from a review of ‘I Humbly Beg Your Speedy Answer’: Letters on Love & Marriage from the World’s First Personal Advice Column / Mary Beth Norton (Princeton University Press).
S.C. Cornell. 06/16/2025: So You Want to Be a Genius. Review of: The Genius Myth: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea / Helen Lewis. see also the review in TLS June 13 >173 featherbear:
E. Tammy Kim. 06/16/2025: The Atomic Bombs’ Forgotten Korean Victims. Review of: Korean Nuclear Diaspora: Redress Movements of Korean Atomic-Bomb Victims in Japan (Korean Communities across the World) / Yuko Takahashi (Lexington Books).
Katy Waldman. 06/17/2025: James Frey’s New Cancelled-Guy Sex Novel Is as Bad as It Sounds. Review of: Next To Heaven: A Novel / James Frey.
Catherine Lacey, interviewer Merve Emre. 06/17/2025: Catherine Lacey’s Infinite Regress. "The novelist on her unclassifiable new work, “The Möbius Book”; the limits of autobiography; and the appeal of multiplicity."
Joshua Rothman. 06/17/2025: What’s Happening to Reading?
Anne Enright. 06/18/2025: Anne Enright’s Literary Journeys to Australia and New Zealand. Recommended: Monkey Grip: A Novel / Helen Garner -- The Forrests: A Novel / Emily Perkins -- The Golden Age: A Novel / Joan London.
Elizabeth Kolbert. 06/23/2025: Do We Need Another Green Revolution? Review of: We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate / Michael Grunwald -- How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food / Vacla Simil.
Jia Tolentino. 06/23/2025: Are Young People Having Enough Sex? Review of: A New Guide to Sex in the 21st Century / Louise Perry -- The Second Coming: Sex and the Next Generation's Fight Over Its Future / Carter Sherman.
Sue Halpern. 06/25/2025: A Summer Reading List of Lighthearted Mysteries. "reassuring and riveting": The Thursday Murder Club / Richard Osman -- Death and Croissants / Ian Moore -- "The Charles Lenox Mysteries" by Charles Finch ("there are more than a dozen books in this series, which stretches from 1850 to 1878") -- The Word Is Murder / Anthony Horowitz (part of a series which I very much enjoy).
Casey Cep. 06/28/2025: What I Learned from My Mother and the U.S. Postal Service. Regarding Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home / Stephen Starring Grant.
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June 5 2025 updates:
Atlantic June 4: archivists vs digital clutter >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 5: memoir by former NZ PM >137 featherbear:
LARB June 5: 2 books on the effect of China's one child policy; People's Choice literature >141 featherbear:
Public Books June 5: revisiting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 4: book news former Biden press sec K Jean-Pierre leaves Democratic Party w/forthcoming October book on experiences in the administration >132 featherbear:
Plus first June postings for New Yorker, Noema, Literary Review, n+1
June Index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 4: archivists vs digital clutter >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 5: memoir by former NZ PM >137 featherbear:
LARB June 5: 2 books on the effect of China's one child policy; People's Choice literature >141 featherbear:
Public Books June 5: revisiting Gentlemen Prefer Blondes >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 4: book news former Biden press sec K Jean-Pierre leaves Democratic Party w/forthcoming October book on experiences in the administration >132 featherbear:
Plus first June postings for New Yorker, Noema, Literary Review, n+1
June Index >130 featherbear:
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Luke Savage. The Walrus, 06/04/2025: Is Jordan Peterson Just Making It Up as He Goes?
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June 6 updates:
Guardian June 5: King of Dirt -- June 6: Gay restaurants; books in Geoff Dyer's life; A Chechen mother; Daniel Kehlmann's GW Pabst historical novel >137 featherbear:
LARB June 6: creaturely theory of the novel; restructuring the US >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 5: Joan Didion's Notes to John >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 3: I, Robot -- June 5: Jacinda Ardern memoir -- June 6: 1960s NY avant-garde >155 featherbear:
NYT June 6: the filthy rich; world falling apart? no worries >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 4: Proto-language -- June 5: Third Reich dreams & nightmares; Yiyun Li's lost sons -- June 6: Jeffrey Seller's theater memoir >132 featherbear:
New June posting for The Walrus
June index >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 5: King of Dirt -- June 6: Gay restaurants; books in Geoff Dyer's life; A Chechen mother; Daniel Kehlmann's GW Pabst historical novel >137 featherbear:
LARB June 6: creaturely theory of the novel; restructuring the US >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 5: Joan Didion's Notes to John >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 3: I, Robot -- June 5: Jacinda Ardern memoir -- June 6: 1960s NY avant-garde >155 featherbear:
NYT June 6: the filthy rich; world falling apart? no worries >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 4: Proto-language -- June 5: Third Reich dreams & nightmares; Yiyun Li's lost sons -- June 6: Jeffrey Seller's theater memoir >132 featherbear:
New June posting for The Walrus
June index >130 featherbear:
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June 7 updates:
Guardian June 7: Lee Child Q&A; Carla Hayden interview; Steven Pinker appears on suspect podcast >137 featherbear:
LARB June 7: two new books on Mao-era China >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 7: Why do doctors write? >155 featherbear:
WaPo June 7: interview w/Jess Walter, author of So Far Gone >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 7: Lee Child Q&A; Carla Hayden interview; Steven Pinker appears on suspect podcast >137 featherbear:
LARB June 7: two new books on Mao-era China >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 7: Why do doctors write? >155 featherbear:
WaPo June 7: interview w/Jess Walter, author of So Far Gone >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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Alice Notley, 1945-2025
Emily Langer. WaPo, 06/06/2025: Alice Notley, acclaimed voice in American poetry, dies at 79.
"Ms. Notley was widely regarded as one of the finest American poets of her generation. Her more than 40 books included the collection “Mysteries of Small Houses,” a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in poetry.
"Her output — which ranged from pictorial poems, with words arranged to create physical forms, to book-length epics — was difficult to summarize. Ms. Notley, in any event, rejected most efforts to categorize her.
"Although her work was decidedly her own, Ms. Notley often was categorized with a group of poets that included Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan, who was Ms. Notley’s first husband.
"She was the only poet she knew, the Poetry Foundation quoted her as saying, “who used the details of pregnancy and motherhood as a direct, pervading subject in poems, on a daily basis, as if it were true that half the people in the world gave birth to others and everyone had been born.”
"“Partly, it was clear to me that my dreaming self was better at some aspects of poetry writing than I, awake, was — my dreams would often surprise me when ‘I’ couldn’t.”
"“Mostly I just keep writing in whatever way I want to next,” she continued, adding: “American poetry is really stupid right now, it thinks there are schools, groupings, lineages, ways of thinking and proceeding rather than individual poems simply to be read on their own terms. It thinks, basically, that there are critics and thinkers and users of poetry rather than poets. It’s all so tiny.”
Ash Wu. NYT, 06/02/2025: Alice Notley, Poet Celebrated for ‘Restless Reinvention,’ Dies at 79. "Once called “our present-day Homer” for her sprawling, experimental epics, she was honored with prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1999."
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/notleyalice
Emily Langer. WaPo, 06/06/2025: Alice Notley, acclaimed voice in American poetry, dies at 79.
"Ms. Notley was widely regarded as one of the finest American poets of her generation. Her more than 40 books included the collection “Mysteries of Small Houses,” a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in poetry.
"Her output — which ranged from pictorial poems, with words arranged to create physical forms, to book-length epics — was difficult to summarize. Ms. Notley, in any event, rejected most efforts to categorize her.
"Although her work was decidedly her own, Ms. Notley often was categorized with a group of poets that included Anne Waldman, Bernadette Mayer, Ron Padgett and Ted Berrigan, who was Ms. Notley’s first husband.
"She was the only poet she knew, the Poetry Foundation quoted her as saying, “who used the details of pregnancy and motherhood as a direct, pervading subject in poems, on a daily basis, as if it were true that half the people in the world gave birth to others and everyone had been born.”
"“Partly, it was clear to me that my dreaming self was better at some aspects of poetry writing than I, awake, was — my dreams would often surprise me when ‘I’ couldn’t.”
"“Mostly I just keep writing in whatever way I want to next,” she continued, adding: “American poetry is really stupid right now, it thinks there are schools, groupings, lineages, ways of thinking and proceeding rather than individual poems simply to be read on their own terms. It thinks, basically, that there are critics and thinkers and users of poetry rather than poets. It’s all so tiny.”
Ash Wu. NYT, 06/02/2025: Alice Notley, Poet Celebrated for ‘Restless Reinvention,’ Dies at 79. "Once called “our present-day Homer” for her sprawling, experimental epics, she was honored with prizes and was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 1999."
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/notleyalice
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NYRB online June 26 2025
Literature & Language
Kwame Anthony Appiah. Translation’s Drift. Review of: The Philosophy of Translation / Damion Searls -- Speaking in Tongues / J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos (Liverwright).
Maurice Samuels. Proust’s Jewish Question. Review of: Proust, a Jewish Way / Antoine Compagnon, translated from the French by Jody Gladding -- Marcel Proust: L’Adieu au monde juif / Pierre Birnbaum.
Ursula Lindsey. Mohamed Choukri’s Unromantic Tangier. Review of: For Bread Alone / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic and with an introduction by Paul Bowles -- In Tangier / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles, Gretchen Head, and John Garrett, with forewords by William Burroughs and Gavin Lambert -- Tales of Tangier / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, with a foreword by Roger Allen -- Faces / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, with a foreword by Roger Allen.
Arts
Michael Greenberg. The Vanishing Mr. Beame. Review of Drop Dead City, a documentary film by Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost.
Carolina A. Miranda. Close to the Punches. Review of Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream..., an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, November 15, 2024–March 23, 2025, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, May 24, 2025–April 5, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Denise Markonish.
Medicine
Gavin Francis. What Do You Expect? Review of: Placebos / Kathryn T. Hall -- The Power of Placebos: How the Science of Placebos and Nocebos Can Improve Health Care / Jeremy Howick.
History, Politics, & Society
Michael Kazin. Bridging the Gap. Review of: Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America / Nick Witham.
David A. Bell. My Freedom, My Choice. Review of: The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life / Sophia Rosenfeld.
Kathryn Hughes. Feminists in Wimples. Review of: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women / Hetta Howes.
Kenneth Pomeranz. The Puzzle of the Qing. Review of: The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation: Belief Systems, Politics, and Institutions / Taisu Zhang -- Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China / Wenkai He.
Rozina Ali. ‘They’re Here to Detain Me.’ "Mahmoud Khalil has not been charged with a crime—but the government is attempting to deport him and other students and scholars for their points of view." (Article)
Marilynne Robinson. Notes from an Occupation. "America is an occupied country, ruled by partisans hostile to democracy." (Essay)
Christopher R. Browning. . Response to: "Neal Ascherson’s review of Richard J. Evans’s Hitler’s People NYR, March 27"
Literature & Language
Kwame Anthony Appiah. Translation’s Drift. Review of: The Philosophy of Translation / Damion Searls -- Speaking in Tongues / J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos (Liverwright).
Maurice Samuels. Proust’s Jewish Question. Review of: Proust, a Jewish Way / Antoine Compagnon, translated from the French by Jody Gladding -- Marcel Proust: L’Adieu au monde juif / Pierre Birnbaum.
Ursula Lindsey. Mohamed Choukri’s Unromantic Tangier. Review of: For Bread Alone / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic and with an introduction by Paul Bowles -- In Tangier / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Paul Bowles, Gretchen Head, and John Garrett, with forewords by William Burroughs and Gavin Lambert -- Tales of Tangier / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, with a foreword by Roger Allen -- Faces / Mohamed Choukri, translated from the Arabic by Jonas Elbousty, with a foreword by Roger Allen.
Arts
Michael Greenberg. The Vanishing Mr. Beame. Review of Drop Dead City, a documentary film by Michael Rohatyn and Peter Yost.
Carolina A. Miranda. Close to the Punches. Review of Vincent Valdez: Just a Dream..., an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, November 15, 2024–March 23, 2025, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, North Adams, May 24, 2025–April 5, 2026; catalog of the exhibition edited by Denise Markonish.
Medicine
Gavin Francis. What Do You Expect? Review of: Placebos / Kathryn T. Hall -- The Power of Placebos: How the Science of Placebos and Nocebos Can Improve Health Care / Jeremy Howick.
History, Politics, & Society
Michael Kazin. Bridging the Gap. Review of: Popularizing the Past: Historians, Publishers, and Readers in Postwar America / Nick Witham.
David A. Bell. My Freedom, My Choice. Review of: The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life / Sophia Rosenfeld.
Kathryn Hughes. Feminists in Wimples. Review of: Poet, Mystic, Widow, Wife: The Extraordinary Lives of Medieval Women / Hetta Howes.
Kenneth Pomeranz. The Puzzle of the Qing. Review of: The Ideological Foundations of Qing Taxation: Belief Systems, Politics, and Institutions / Taisu Zhang -- Public Interest and State Legitimation: Early Modern England, Japan, and China / Wenkai He.
Rozina Ali. ‘They’re Here to Detain Me.’ "Mahmoud Khalil has not been charged with a crime—but the government is attempting to deport him and other students and scholars for their points of view." (Article)
Marilynne Robinson. Notes from an Occupation. "America is an occupied country, ruled by partisans hostile to democracy." (Essay)
Christopher R. Browning. . Response to: "Neal Ascherson’s review of Richard J. Evans’s Hitler’s People NYR, March 27"
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June 8 updates:
Guardian June 8: excerpt from Molly Jong-Fast's mommy memoir; rather negative review of Gingerich's Trump's Triumph >137 featherbear:
LARB June 8: Hayek's bastards >141 featherbear:
NYT June 7: John Hancock bio; Geoff Dyer memoir >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 7: Mrs Dalloway at 100 -- June 8: S.A. Cosby thriller >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 8: excerpt from Molly Jong-Fast's mommy memoir; rather negative review of Gingerich's Trump's Triumph >137 featherbear:
LARB June 8: Hayek's bastards >141 featherbear:
NYT June 7: John Hancock bio; Geoff Dyer memoir >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 7: Mrs Dalloway at 100 -- June 8: S.A. Cosby thriller >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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Stanley Fischer, 1943-2025
James R. Hagerty. NYT, 06/01/2025: Stanley Fischer, Who Helped Defuse Financial Crises, Dies at 81. "He was the No. 2 at the Federal Reserve and the I.M.F. during periods of economic turmoil, and he mentored future economic leaders, like Ben Bernanke."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/fischerstanley
James R. Hagerty. NYT, 06/01/2025: Stanley Fischer, Who Helped Defuse Financial Crises, Dies at 81. "He was the No. 2 at the Federal Reserve and the I.M.F. during periods of economic turmoil, and he mentored future economic leaders, like Ben Bernanke."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/fischerstanley
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June 9 updates:
Atlantic June 9: the real Les Miserables >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 9: dual bio of Augustus & Gwen John; muckle flugga >137 featherbear:
NYT June 7: gun-toting Christians novel -- June 8: serial killers of the Pacific Northwest (nonfiction) -- June 9: cartoon heroine from Argentina >131 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 9: the real Les Miserables >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 9: dual bio of Augustus & Gwen John; muckle flugga >137 featherbear:
NYT June 7: gun-toting Christians novel -- June 8: serial killers of the Pacific Northwest (nonfiction) -- June 9: cartoon heroine from Argentina >131 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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Emmet Rensin. ThePoint, 06/06/2025: Hazards of Reality: what happened to Shulamith Firestone?
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Frederick Forsyth, 1928-2025
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, thriller writer of ‘Day of the Jackal,’ dies at 86.
"Frederick Forsyth, a mega-selling British novelist of political thrillers, cunning spy craft and globe-trotting intrigue who used his own background as a foreign correspondent to inspire such page-turners as “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Odessa File” and “The Dogs of War,” died June 9 at his home in Buckinghamshire, a county in southeast England. He was 86.
"For a half-century, Mr. Forsyth was one of the most successful authors of the cloak-and-dagger circuit. He wrote more than 20 novels, short stories and other works, reportedly selling more than 75 million copies in more than a dozen languages. Many of his books, featuring high-stakes action and protagonists pitted against seemingly impossible odds, were made into movies or TV dramas.
"Unlike John le Carré, a contemporary who delved into the moral ambiguities of Cold War espionage, Mr. Forsyth never pretended to be anything other than, by his own description, “just a storyteller.” Book critics were generally kind, often praising his blistering plot pace and meticulous attention to detail.
"He began writing novels at a low point. After an early stint with Reuters, he quit the BBC in 1968 while serving as assistant diplomatic correspondent. He accused his bosses of being more interested in toeing the government line in the former British protectorate of Nigeria than reporting the “horror” of the famine and repression in the Biafra region fighting to secede.
"He worked as a freelancer reporting the Biafran side of the story before writing a nonfiction book, “The Biafra Story,” to little notice. Over Christmas 1969 he was back in Britain — “literally broke,” he said. That’s when Mr. Forsyth, who had mulled for years the attempted assassination of De Gaulle as scaffolding for a novel, spent a little over a month at the typewriter and finished the manuscript for “The Day of the Jackal” with the aid of many packs of Rothmans cigarettes."
Clay Risen. NYT, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, Master of the Geopolitical Thriller, Dies at 86.
Richard Lea. Guardian, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86. "Writer used his experience reporting on De Gaulle’s France to plot his thriller, and continued to draw on real-world research for subsequent bestsellers."
Lee Child. Guardian, 06/10/2025: ‘He changed the rules for all of us who came after’: Lee Child remembers Frederick Forsyth.
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/forsythfrederick
Brian Murphy. WaPo, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, thriller writer of ‘Day of the Jackal,’ dies at 86.
"Frederick Forsyth, a mega-selling British novelist of political thrillers, cunning spy craft and globe-trotting intrigue who used his own background as a foreign correspondent to inspire such page-turners as “The Day of the Jackal,” “The Odessa File” and “The Dogs of War,” died June 9 at his home in Buckinghamshire, a county in southeast England. He was 86.
"For a half-century, Mr. Forsyth was one of the most successful authors of the cloak-and-dagger circuit. He wrote more than 20 novels, short stories and other works, reportedly selling more than 75 million copies in more than a dozen languages. Many of his books, featuring high-stakes action and protagonists pitted against seemingly impossible odds, were made into movies or TV dramas.
"Unlike John le Carré, a contemporary who delved into the moral ambiguities of Cold War espionage, Mr. Forsyth never pretended to be anything other than, by his own description, “just a storyteller.” Book critics were generally kind, often praising his blistering plot pace and meticulous attention to detail.
"He began writing novels at a low point. After an early stint with Reuters, he quit the BBC in 1968 while serving as assistant diplomatic correspondent. He accused his bosses of being more interested in toeing the government line in the former British protectorate of Nigeria than reporting the “horror” of the famine and repression in the Biafra region fighting to secede.
"He worked as a freelancer reporting the Biafran side of the story before writing a nonfiction book, “The Biafra Story,” to little notice. Over Christmas 1969 he was back in Britain — “literally broke,” he said. That’s when Mr. Forsyth, who had mulled for years the attempted assassination of De Gaulle as scaffolding for a novel, spent a little over a month at the typewriter and finished the manuscript for “The Day of the Jackal” with the aid of many packs of Rothmans cigarettes."
Clay Risen. NYT, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, Master of the Geopolitical Thriller, Dies at 86.
Richard Lea. Guardian, 06/09/2025: Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86. "Writer used his experience reporting on De Gaulle’s France to plot his thriller, and continued to draw on real-world research for subsequent bestsellers."
Lee Child. Guardian, 06/10/2025: ‘He changed the rules for all of us who came after’: Lee Child remembers Frederick Forsyth.
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/forsythfrederick
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Ed Simon. Hedgehog Review, 06/05/2025: The Political Journey of Thomas Mann. "How a convert to liberalism retained the wisdom of a conservative."
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June 10 updates:
The Critic (UK) June 10: Divine Comedy a biography >134 featherbear:
LARB June 9: novel about Grenfell Tower disaster -- June 10: analytic philosophy; Bloomsbury novel >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 10: King Lear & totalitarian China >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 9: girl on girl 80s pop culture book >155 featherbear:
NYT June 2: Charles Sumner bio -- June 10: S.A. Cosby's latest thriller >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 10: AI realpolitik >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 9: Bloomsbury Group novel -- June 10: Great Black Hope novel; immigration activist's own story >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) June 10: Divine Comedy a biography >134 featherbear:
LARB June 9: novel about Grenfell Tower disaster -- June 10: analytic philosophy; Bloomsbury novel >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 10: King Lear & totalitarian China >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 9: girl on girl 80s pop culture book >155 featherbear:
NYT June 2: Charles Sumner bio -- June 10: S.A. Cosby's latest thriller >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 10: AI realpolitik >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 9: Bloomsbury Group novel -- June 10: Great Black Hope novel; immigration activist's own story >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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Geoffrey Brock. Poetry Foundation, 05/27/2025: Poets on Translation: Otherwise the Same. "What gets lost in our eagerness to acknowledge that much gets lost in translation?"
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Aeon June 2025:
James Read. 06/06/2025: Why philosophy of physics?
Fasil Merawi. 06/10/2025: What is Ethiopian philosophy?
Fleur Hopkins-Loféron. 06/20/2025: Merveilleux-scientifique: With brain swaps and death rays, a little-known French sci-fi genre explored science’s dark possibilities a century ago.
James Read. 06/06/2025: Why philosophy of physics?
Fasil Merawi. 06/10/2025: What is Ethiopian philosophy?
Fleur Hopkins-Loféron. 06/20/2025: Merveilleux-scientifique: With brain swaps and death rays, a little-known French sci-fi genre explored science’s dark possibilities a century ago.
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Sandra Cisneros. Paris Review, 06/10/2025: Cents and Sensibility. "How does a woman writer make her own money? How does she find the time to write? As a young woman, I scoured every book-jacket biography trying to decipher this secret."
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June 11 2025:
The Critic (UK) June 11: Robert Kaplan on a world in permanent crisis; Is a River Alive?? >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 11: sexual evolution & animals; a woman’s return to her family home in the west of Ireland (novel) >137 featherbear:
NYT June 3: Kate Spade memoir (of friend) -- June 8: Charlottesville 2017 -- June 10: writing a novel to avoid administrative work -- June 11: Jane Austen's letters >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: Britney Spears; Bug Hollow >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) June 11: Robert Kaplan on a world in permanent crisis; Is a River Alive?? >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 11: sexual evolution & animals; a woman’s return to her family home in the west of Ireland (novel) >137 featherbear:
NYT June 3: Kate Spade memoir (of friend) -- June 8: Charlottesville 2017 -- June 10: writing a novel to avoid administrative work -- June 11: Jane Austen's letters >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: Britney Spears; Bug Hollow >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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TLS June 13, 2025|No. 6376
Featured
Andrew Stark. You’re the tops: What Americans understand by greatness. Review of: THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME: A history of an American obsession / Zev Eleff.
Keith Miller. Symmetry in motion: Capers and wallpaper: a new film from Wes Anderson. Review of Wes Anderson's film THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.
Russell Williams. Exploring the occult: A practical and literary guide to modern magic. Review of: THE MOON AND SERPENT BUMPER BOOK OF MAGIC / Alan Moore and Steve Moore.
Omer Bartov. Friends like these: The wartime alliances that could not survive the peace. Review of: THE STRATEGISTS: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler – How war made them and how they made war / Phillips Payson O’Brien -- ALLIES AT WAR: The politics of defeating Hitler / Tim Bouverie.
Literature & Language
Sara Lodge. Go figure: Mathematical patterns in Byron, Austen, Dickens and Trollope. Review of: THE NUMBER SENSE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE / Stefanie Markovits (Oxford University Press).
David Wheatley. Not Burns – Dunbar!: A revelatory history of Scottish verse, from Columba to Carol Ann Duffy. Review of: SCOTTISH RELIGIOUS POETRY
From the sixth century to the present day / Edited by Linden Bicket, Emma Dymock and Alison Jack (St. Andrew Press).
Alison Kelly. And yet you’re still here: Stories of ordinary lives changshaped by extraordinary times. Review of: TWELVE POST-WAR TALES / Graham Swift.
Adina Stroia. From here and there: A Moroccan family across three generations and beyond. Review of: J’EMPORTERAI LE FEU / Leïla Slimani.
Christopher Shrimpton. We’re being sent to Margate: Strange schooldays in an alternative 1970s Britain. Review of: THE BOOK OF GUILT / Catherine Chidgey.
Tom Sperlinger. Apricots in blossom: A Palestinian returns from the diaspora to his family home. Review of: THE PALACE ON THE HIGHER HILL / Karim Kattan; translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Foundry Editions).
Marie Darrieussecq. Already slipping away: A love triangle in a France where nothing comes easy. Review of: AIMEZ GIL / Shane Haddad.
Ian Sansom. Not over yet: Revisiting the Troubles, past, present and future. Review of: MONAGHAN / Timothy O'Grady (Boundless).
Ian Sansom. Warblings under the sun: Writing a column about the column. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: SPEAKING IN TONGUES J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos (Liverwright).
In Brief Review of: THE CATASTROPHE HOUR: Selected essays / Meghan Daum.
In Brief Review of: A FOOL’S KABBALAH / Steve Stern. "A novel tracing two byways through the Holocaust and its aftermath."
Arts
Peter Maber. Good vibrations: Sonic responses to human engagement. Review of FEEL THE SOUND, Barbican, London, until August 31, "an immersive, multisensory show that aims to “expand the potential of listening beyond hearing.”"
In Brief Review of: THE ART OF THE SCRIBE: Practical projects inspired by the calligraphy and illustrations of medieval manuscripts / Patricia Lovett (British Library).
Magic & the Occult
Sam Quill. Magick, art and tarot: The strange alchemy of Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris. Review of: THE LADY AND THE BEAST: The extraordinary partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley / Deja Whitehouse.
History, Politics, & Society/Culture
Nat Segnit. Business class: Political polarization and the crisis in higher education. Review of: BAD EDUCATION: Why our universities are broken and how we can fix them / Matt Goodwin -- THE SECRET LECTURER: What really goes on at university / Anonymous. (See also the issue's Letters on free speech)
Mark Nayler. Genius or scenius?: The mythology surrounding creative and scientific breakthroughs. Review of: THE GENIUS MYTH: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea (UK subtitle: The dangerous allure of rebels, monsters and rule-breakers) / Helen Lewis (US: Thesis; UK: Cape).
Libby Purves. Sisterhood and betrayal: A history of female friendships. Review of: BAD FRIEND: A century of revolutionary friendships / Tiffany Watt Smith.
Mary Fulbrook. Where the past is never past: The politics of memory in postwar Germany. Review of: ZUKUNFT DER ERINNERUNG: Das deutsche Erbe und die kommende Generation / Wolfgang Benz.
Gary Sheffield. Beyond the longest day: How the US snatched the glory in Normandy campaign. Review of: SECOND FRONT: Anglo-American rivalry and the hidden story of the Normandy Campaign / Marc Milner -- NORMANDY: THE SAILORS’ STORY: A naval history of D-Day and the battle for France / Nick Hewitt -- SWORD: D-Day – Trial by battle / Max Hastings.
Lucy Lethbridge. A rural tragedy: The classic account of death in a Devon farming family. Review of: EARTH TO EARTH: The lives and violent deaths of a Devon farming family / John Cornwell.
Fred D'Aguiar. Pioneer at a price: From Jamaica to the BBC and back again. Review of: CALLING UNA MARSON: The extraordinary life of a forgotten icon / June Sarpong and Jennifer Obidike (Akan).
Anna Girling. Our young people: Una Marson’s magazine. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: SAVAGES AND BEASTS: The birth of the modern zoo (revised edition) / Nigel Rothfels (Johns Hopkins University Press).
In Brief Review of: BASE NOTES: The scents of a life / Adelle Stripe (White Stripe). "A life in fragrances, from Giorgio Beverly Hills to CK One."
In Brief Review of: THE STRAND: A biography / Geoff Browell and Eileen Chanin. ("brimful of information on what is arguably one of the most significant streets in London, the route for the capital’s expansion over many centuries. As a historical account, however, it is somewhat infuriating.")
Featured
Andrew Stark. You’re the tops: What Americans understand by greatness. Review of: THE GREATEST OF ALL TIME: A history of an American obsession / Zev Eleff.
Keith Miller. Symmetry in motion: Capers and wallpaper: a new film from Wes Anderson. Review of Wes Anderson's film THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME.
Russell Williams. Exploring the occult: A practical and literary guide to modern magic. Review of: THE MOON AND SERPENT BUMPER BOOK OF MAGIC / Alan Moore and Steve Moore.
Omer Bartov. Friends like these: The wartime alliances that could not survive the peace. Review of: THE STRATEGISTS: Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt, Mussolini and Hitler – How war made them and how they made war / Phillips Payson O’Brien -- ALLIES AT WAR: The politics of defeating Hitler / Tim Bouverie.
Literature & Language
Sara Lodge. Go figure: Mathematical patterns in Byron, Austen, Dickens and Trollope. Review of: THE NUMBER SENSE OF NINETEENTH-CENTURY BRITISH LITERATURE / Stefanie Markovits (Oxford University Press).
David Wheatley. Not Burns – Dunbar!: A revelatory history of Scottish verse, from Columba to Carol Ann Duffy. Review of: SCOTTISH RELIGIOUS POETRY
From the sixth century to the present day / Edited by Linden Bicket, Emma Dymock and Alison Jack (St. Andrew Press).
Alison Kelly. And yet you’re still here: Stories of ordinary lives changshaped by extraordinary times. Review of: TWELVE POST-WAR TALES / Graham Swift.
Adina Stroia. From here and there: A Moroccan family across three generations and beyond. Review of: J’EMPORTERAI LE FEU / Leïla Slimani.
Christopher Shrimpton. We’re being sent to Margate: Strange schooldays in an alternative 1970s Britain. Review of: THE BOOK OF GUILT / Catherine Chidgey.
Tom Sperlinger. Apricots in blossom: A Palestinian returns from the diaspora to his family home. Review of: THE PALACE ON THE HIGHER HILL / Karim Kattan; translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (Foundry Editions).
Marie Darrieussecq. Already slipping away: A love triangle in a France where nothing comes easy. Review of: AIMEZ GIL / Shane Haddad.
Ian Sansom. Not over yet: Revisiting the Troubles, past, present and future. Review of: MONAGHAN / Timothy O'Grady (Boundless).
Ian Sansom. Warblings under the sun: Writing a column about the column. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: SPEAKING IN TONGUES J. M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimópulos (Liverwright).
In Brief Review of: THE CATASTROPHE HOUR: Selected essays / Meghan Daum.
In Brief Review of: A FOOL’S KABBALAH / Steve Stern. "A novel tracing two byways through the Holocaust and its aftermath."
Arts
Peter Maber. Good vibrations: Sonic responses to human engagement. Review of FEEL THE SOUND, Barbican, London, until August 31, "an immersive, multisensory show that aims to “expand the potential of listening beyond hearing.”"
In Brief Review of: THE ART OF THE SCRIBE: Practical projects inspired by the calligraphy and illustrations of medieval manuscripts / Patricia Lovett (British Library).
Magic & the Occult
Sam Quill. Magick, art and tarot: The strange alchemy of Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris. Review of: THE LADY AND THE BEAST: The extraordinary partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley / Deja Whitehouse.
History, Politics, & Society/Culture
Nat Segnit. Business class: Political polarization and the crisis in higher education. Review of: BAD EDUCATION: Why our universities are broken and how we can fix them / Matt Goodwin -- THE SECRET LECTURER: What really goes on at university / Anonymous. (See also the issue's Letters on free speech)
Mark Nayler. Genius or scenius?: The mythology surrounding creative and scientific breakthroughs. Review of: THE GENIUS MYTH: A Curious History of a Dangerous Idea (UK subtitle: The dangerous allure of rebels, monsters and rule-breakers) / Helen Lewis (US: Thesis; UK: Cape).
Libby Purves. Sisterhood and betrayal: A history of female friendships. Review of: BAD FRIEND: A century of revolutionary friendships / Tiffany Watt Smith.
Mary Fulbrook. Where the past is never past: The politics of memory in postwar Germany. Review of: ZUKUNFT DER ERINNERUNG: Das deutsche Erbe und die kommende Generation / Wolfgang Benz.
Gary Sheffield. Beyond the longest day: How the US snatched the glory in Normandy campaign. Review of: SECOND FRONT: Anglo-American rivalry and the hidden story of the Normandy Campaign / Marc Milner -- NORMANDY: THE SAILORS’ STORY: A naval history of D-Day and the battle for France / Nick Hewitt -- SWORD: D-Day – Trial by battle / Max Hastings.
Lucy Lethbridge. A rural tragedy: The classic account of death in a Devon farming family. Review of: EARTH TO EARTH: The lives and violent deaths of a Devon farming family / John Cornwell.
Fred D'Aguiar. Pioneer at a price: From Jamaica to the BBC and back again. Review of: CALLING UNA MARSON: The extraordinary life of a forgotten icon / June Sarpong and Jennifer Obidike (Akan).
Anna Girling. Our young people: Una Marson’s magazine. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: SAVAGES AND BEASTS: The birth of the modern zoo (revised edition) / Nigel Rothfels (Johns Hopkins University Press).
In Brief Review of: BASE NOTES: The scents of a life / Adelle Stripe (White Stripe). "A life in fragrances, from Giorgio Beverly Hills to CK One."
In Brief Review of: THE STRAND: A biography / Geoff Browell and Eileen Chanin. ("brimful of information on what is arguably one of the most significant streets in London, the route for the capital’s expansion over many centuries. As a historical account, however, it is somewhat infuriating.")
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June 12 updates
NYT June 11: how Saving the Amazon was completed after the murder of Dom Phillips -- June 12: weightlifting for women >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 11: fiction after fascism -- June 12: future of climate fiction >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: Desi Arnaz bio >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
NYT June 11: how Saving the Amazon was completed after the murder of Dom Phillips -- June 12: weightlifting for women >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 11: fiction after fascism -- June 12: future of climate fiction >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: Desi Arnaz bio >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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Ran across this list/interview while checking out Frederick Forsyth citations on fivebooks.com. Aside from the recommendations, Michael Burleigh's comments are pungent, so I'm posting it even though it dates back to 2021:
Michael Burleigh, interviewer Benedict King. fivebooks.com, 08/13/2025: The best books on Assassinations. Burleigh is the author of: Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder.
Recommended: The Day of the Jackal / Frederick Forsyth -- Stalin's Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov / Boris Volodarsky -- The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The life of Dimitri Tsafendas / Harris Dousemetzis -- Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars / Chris Woods -- The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi / Jonathan Rugman.
Michael Burleigh, interviewer Benedict King. fivebooks.com, 08/13/2025: The best books on Assassinations. Burleigh is the author of: Day of the Assassins: A History of Political Murder.
Recommended: The Day of the Jackal / Frederick Forsyth -- Stalin's Agent: The Life and Death of Alexander Orlov / Boris Volodarsky -- The Man Who Killed Apartheid: The life of Dimitri Tsafendas / Harris Dousemetzis -- Sudden Justice: America's Secret Drone Wars / Chris Woods -- The Killing in the Consulate: Investigating the Life and Death of Jamal Khashoggi / Jonathan Rugman.
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fivebooks.com June 2025
Louis Hall, interviewer Cal Flynn. 06/10/2025: The best books on Long-Distance Journeys. Louis Hall is the author of the forthcoming (July 1 per Amazon) In Green: Two Horses, Two Strangers, a Journey to the End of the Land by Louis Hall (September Publishing (UK)).
Hall's recommendations: My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City / Alexandra David-Neel -- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning / Laurie Lee -- Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia / Penelope Chetwode -- The Long Way / Bernard Moitessier; translator William Rodarmor -- The Snow Leopard / Peter Mathiessen.
Yanni Katsonis, interviewer Sophie Roell. 06/15/2025: The best books on Modern Greek History. Katsonis is the author of: The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism.
Katsonis's recommendations are: Freedom and Death / Nikos Kazantzakis -- Che Committed Suicide / Petros Markaris -- That Greece Might Still be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence / William St. Clair -- A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge Concise Histories) / Richard Clogg -- Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution / Roderick Beaton.
Kim Ho-Yeon, interviewer Tuva Kahrs. 06/17/2025: Five of the Best 21st Century Korean Novels. "I picked novels that are currently popular in Korea and have been published in English. And they are all books that I really enjoyed reading myself." His The Second Chance Convenience Store: A Novel, translator Janet Hong, US release 6/17/2025 per Amazon.
Kim's recommendations: Whale / Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translator Chi-Young Kim -- 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster: A Novel / Mirinae Lee -- Concerning My Daughter / Hye-jin Kim, translator Jamie Chang -- Love in the Big City / Sang Young Park (Author), Anton Hur (Translator) -- The Plotters: A Novel / Un-su Kim (Author), Sora Kim-Russell (Translator).
Andrew M. Butler, interviewer Sylvia Bishop. 06/19/2025: Best Science Fiction Books of 2025. The nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke award.
Nominees: Private Rites: A Novel / Julia Armfield -- The Ministry of Time: A Novel / Kaliane Bradley -- Extremophile / Ian Green -- Annie Bot / Sierra Greer -- Service Model / Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock / Maud Woolf.
Lijia Zhang, interviewer Tuva Kahrs. 06/30/2025: The Best 20th Century Chinese Fiction Books. Some of Zhang's books: Lotus: a novel -- "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China -- China Remembers (with Calum McLeod).
She recommends: The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun / Lu Xun, translator Julia Lovell -- Fortress Besieged / Qian Zhongshu; translated by Jeanne Kelly & Nathan K. Mao (Penguin Modern Classics) -- Red Sorghum: A Novel of China / Mo Yan; translator Howard Goldblatt -- To Live: A Novel / Yu Hua; translator Michael Berry -- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel / Dai Sijie; translator Ina Rilke.
Louis Hall, interviewer Cal Flynn. 06/10/2025: The best books on Long-Distance Journeys. Louis Hall is the author of the forthcoming (July 1 per Amazon) In Green: Two Horses, Two Strangers, a Journey to the End of the Land by Louis Hall (September Publishing (UK)).
Hall's recommendations: My Journey to Lhasa: The Classic Story of the Only Western Woman Who Succeeded in Entering the Forbidden City / Alexandra David-Neel -- As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning / Laurie Lee -- Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia / Penelope Chetwode -- The Long Way / Bernard Moitessier; translator William Rodarmor -- The Snow Leopard / Peter Mathiessen.
Yanni Katsonis, interviewer Sophie Roell. 06/15/2025: The best books on Modern Greek History. Katsonis is the author of: The Greek Revolution and the Violent Birth of Nationalism.
Katsonis's recommendations are: Freedom and Death / Nikos Kazantzakis -- Che Committed Suicide / Petros Markaris -- That Greece Might Still be Free: The Philhellenes in the War of Independence / William St. Clair -- A Concise History of Greece (Cambridge Concise Histories) / Richard Clogg -- Byron's War: Romantic Rebellion, Greek Revolution / Roderick Beaton.
Kim Ho-Yeon, interviewer Tuva Kahrs. 06/17/2025: Five of the Best 21st Century Korean Novels. "I picked novels that are currently popular in Korea and have been published in English. And they are all books that I really enjoyed reading myself." His The Second Chance Convenience Store: A Novel, translator Janet Hong, US release 6/17/2025 per Amazon.
Kim's recommendations: Whale / Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translator Chi-Young Kim -- 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster: A Novel / Mirinae Lee -- Concerning My Daughter / Hye-jin Kim, translator Jamie Chang -- Love in the Big City / Sang Young Park (Author), Anton Hur (Translator) -- The Plotters: A Novel / Un-su Kim (Author), Sora Kim-Russell (Translator).
Andrew M. Butler, interviewer Sylvia Bishop. 06/19/2025: Best Science Fiction Books of 2025. The nominees for the Arthur C. Clarke award.
Nominees: Private Rites: A Novel / Julia Armfield -- The Ministry of Time: A Novel / Kaliane Bradley -- Extremophile / Ian Green -- Annie Bot / Sierra Greer -- Service Model / Adrian Tchaikovsky -- Thirteen Ways to Kill Lulabelle Rock / Maud Woolf.
Lijia Zhang, interviewer Tuva Kahrs. 06/30/2025: The Best 20th Century Chinese Fiction Books. Some of Zhang's books: Lotus: a novel -- "Socialism Is Great!": A Worker's Memoir of the New China -- China Remembers (with Calum McLeod).
She recommends: The Real Story of Ah-Q and Other Tales of China: The Complete Fiction of Lu Xun / Lu Xun, translator Julia Lovell -- Fortress Besieged / Qian Zhongshu; translated by Jeanne Kelly & Nathan K. Mao (Penguin Modern Classics) -- Red Sorghum: A Novel of China / Mo Yan; translator Howard Goldblatt -- To Live: A Novel / Yu Hua; translator Michael Berry -- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel / Dai Sijie; translator Ina Rilke.
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Elena Gonsalvez Blanco. Yale Review, 06/09/2025: The Talented Ms. Highsmith: I worked for the novelist in her final months. I thought she wanted to kill me.
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Sam Kahn. Persuasion, 06/11/2025: Writers, Abandon Literary Prizes.
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June 13 2025 updates
The Critic (UK): June 12 ancient roots of language; the countryside -- June 13: progressives; suspect medical diagnoses >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 13: bookstore crawls >137 featherbear:
LitHub June 13: women written out of The Iliad >150 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: serial killers & environment of the Pacific Northwest -- June 12: Texas gunfighters -- June 13: Plato & the Tyrant; bio of biographer of Richard Ellmann; PBS doc on Hannah Arendt >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK): June 12 ancient roots of language; the countryside -- June 13: progressives; suspect medical diagnoses >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 13: bookstore crawls >137 featherbear:
LitHub June 13: women written out of The Iliad >150 featherbear:
WaPo June 11: serial killers & environment of the Pacific Northwest -- June 12: Texas gunfighters -- June 13: Plato & the Tyrant; bio of biographer of Richard Ellmann; PBS doc on Hannah Arendt >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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June 14 updates:
The Critic (UK) June 14: 2 reviews of several novels, one a reissue >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 11: winners of the women's prizes for fiction & non-fiction -- June 13: interviews with the winners; British Library's cancellation of Oscar Wilde ends >137 featherbear:
LARB June 14: sad planets >141 featherbear:
WaPo June 13: bio of Luis Alvarez -- June 14: philosophy of shame >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) June 14: 2 reviews of several novels, one a reissue >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 11: winners of the women's prizes for fiction & non-fiction -- June 13: interviews with the winners; British Library's cancellation of Oscar Wilde ends >137 featherbear:
LARB June 14: sad planets >141 featherbear:
WaPo June 13: bio of Luis Alvarez -- June 14: philosophy of shame >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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June 15 updates:
Guardian June 15: Muriel Spark's prophetic power >137 featherbear:
LARB June 14: Michel Houellebecq has a heart -- June 15: buffalo hunter hunting >141 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 15: Muriel Spark's prophetic power >137 featherbear:
LARB June 14: Michel Houellebecq has a heart -- June 15: buffalo hunter hunting >141 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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Max Callimanopulos. 3:AM Magazine, 06/13/2025: Into the Sun. Review of: Into the Sun / C.F. Ramuz (translation Emma Baes and Olivia Ramadan).
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June 16 2025 updates:
Atlantic June 16: new bio of Richard Ellmann the biographer of James Joyce >136 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 15: best books on modern Greek history >176 featherbear:
LitHub June 13: Lewis Lapham -- June 16: medieval monks preserving classical culture >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: Merve Emre on advice columns >155 featherbear:
NYT June 13: struggles of biographers >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 16: new bio of Richard Ellmann the biographer of James Joyce >136 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 15: best books on modern Greek history >176 featherbear:
LitHub June 13: Lewis Lapham -- June 16: medieval monks preserving classical culture >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: Merve Emre on advice columns >155 featherbear:
NYT June 13: struggles of biographers >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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William Langewiesche, 1955-2025
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 06/16/2025: William Langewiesche, the ‘Steve McQueen of Journalism,’ Dies at 70. "He was a master of long form narratives, often involving high-stakes topics. He reported for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine."
"Mr. Langewiesche (pronounced long-gah-vee-shuh) was one of the most prominent long-form nonfiction writers of recent decades. He was an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
"For 10 years running, from 1999 to 2008, his pieces were finalists for the National Magazine Award, and he won it twice: in 2007 for “Rules of Engagement,” about the killing of 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. Marines in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq; and in 2002 for “The Crash of EgyptAir 990,” about a flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999 with the loss of all 217 people aboard.
"Mr. Langewiesche’s account of the EgyptAir crash in 1999, which was profoundly enriched by his own aviation background, blamed a suicidal co-pilot. Egyptian officials refused to accept that conclusion, a response, he wrote, that was rooted in political and cultural chauvinism.
"Mr. Langewiesche learned to fly as a boy and worked as a commercial pilot early on to support his literary ambition. He drew on his aviation expertise in a number of articles and books that laid out highly technical subjects in lucid prose.
"Writing about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III’s famous landing of a commercial airliner in the Hudson River in 2009, Mr. Langewiesche made the case that that injury-free belly flop was a testament more to modern airplane technology than to the heroism of the pilot." (The book in question: Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson)
Cullen Murphy. Atlantic, 06/18/2025: The Master of the White-Knuckle Narrative.
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/langewieschewilliam
Trip Gabriel. NYT, 06/16/2025: William Langewiesche, the ‘Steve McQueen of Journalism,’ Dies at 70. "He was a master of long form narratives, often involving high-stakes topics. He reported for Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine."
"Mr. Langewiesche (pronounced long-gah-vee-shuh) was one of the most prominent long-form nonfiction writers of recent decades. He was an international correspondent for Vanity Fair, a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine and a national correspondent for The Atlantic.
"For 10 years running, from 1999 to 2008, his pieces were finalists for the National Magazine Award, and he won it twice: in 2007 for “Rules of Engagement,” about the killing of 24 unarmed civilians by U.S. Marines in 2005 in Haditha, Iraq; and in 2002 for “The Crash of EgyptAir 990,” about a flight that went down in the Atlantic Ocean in 1999 with the loss of all 217 people aboard.
"Mr. Langewiesche’s account of the EgyptAir crash in 1999, which was profoundly enriched by his own aviation background, blamed a suicidal co-pilot. Egyptian officials refused to accept that conclusion, a response, he wrote, that was rooted in political and cultural chauvinism.
"Mr. Langewiesche learned to fly as a boy and worked as a commercial pilot early on to support his literary ambition. He drew on his aviation expertise in a number of articles and books that laid out highly technical subjects in lucid prose.
"Writing about Capt. Chesley B. Sullenberger III’s famous landing of a commercial airliner in the Hudson River in 2009, Mr. Langewiesche made the case that that injury-free belly flop was a testament more to modern airplane technology than to the heroism of the pilot." (The book in question: Fly by Wire: The Geese, the Glide, the Miracle on the Hudson)
Cullen Murphy. Atlantic, 06/18/2025: The Master of the White-Knuckle Narrative.
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/langewieschewilliam
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Walter Brueggemann, 1933-2025
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 06/17/2025: Walter Brueggemann, Theologian Who Argued for the Poor, Dies at 92. "He used biblical exegesis to argue that faith demands justice, calling on churches to challenge oppression and uplift society’s marginalized."
"Dr. Brueggemann was a rare scholar of the Bible who combined close textual analysis of the Hebrew prophets with a sociological consciousness. Just as these prophets denounced Pharaoh and the oppression of their time, he argued, latter-day prophets should oppose the oppressive traits, like consumerism, militarism and nationalism, that dominate American life.
"His best-known book was “The Prophetic Imagination” (1978), which has sold more than a million copies, according to Publishers Weekly. But there were dozens of others, including collections of his sermons and guides to studying the Old Testament. Dr. Brueggemann’s work, while little known to the general reading public, is widely used in seminaries.
"Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelist and theologian who heads Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, said in an interview that Dr. Brueggemann was “our best biblical scholar of the prophets — and he became one himself.”
“There are court prophets, prophets who just speak to what the king wants them to say,” Mr. Wallis said, “and then there are the biblical prophets who speak up for the poorest and most marginal.” Dr. Brueggemann, he said, was akin to the second kind.
"“The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act,” Dr. Brueggemann wrote in “The Prophetic Imagination.”
"For him, Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible, is “a real character and an active agent,” he said in a lecture in 2023 — a God that is disappointed in mankind’s failings and yet promises “a new world that is possible.”
"In “The Prophetic Imagination,” Dr. Brueggemann drew a sharp contrast between this God and the gods of the empire. The God of Moses, he wrote, “acts in his lordly freedom” and “is extrapolated from no social reality.” Unlike Pharaoh’s gods — who were invented to legitimize power and preserve the status quo — Yahweh disrupts it, calling people toward justice, liberation and hope.
Among his other books are “Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles” (1997), “A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming” (1998), “The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education” (1982), “David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory” (1985) and “The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann” (2011)."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/brueggemannwalter
The NYT obit frequently cites: Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography / Conrad Kanagy (2023).
Adam Nossiter. NYT, 06/17/2025: Walter Brueggemann, Theologian Who Argued for the Poor, Dies at 92. "He used biblical exegesis to argue that faith demands justice, calling on churches to challenge oppression and uplift society’s marginalized."
"Dr. Brueggemann was a rare scholar of the Bible who combined close textual analysis of the Hebrew prophets with a sociological consciousness. Just as these prophets denounced Pharaoh and the oppression of their time, he argued, latter-day prophets should oppose the oppressive traits, like consumerism, militarism and nationalism, that dominate American life.
"His best-known book was “The Prophetic Imagination” (1978), which has sold more than a million copies, according to Publishers Weekly. But there were dozens of others, including collections of his sermons and guides to studying the Old Testament. Dr. Brueggemann’s work, while little known to the general reading public, is widely used in seminaries.
"Jim Wallis, a progressive evangelist and theologian who heads Georgetown University’s Center on Faith and Justice, said in an interview that Dr. Brueggemann was “our best biblical scholar of the prophets — and he became one himself.”
“There are court prophets, prophets who just speak to what the king wants them to say,” Mr. Wallis said, “and then there are the biblical prophets who speak up for the poorest and most marginal.” Dr. Brueggemann, he said, was akin to the second kind.
"“The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act,” Dr. Brueggemann wrote in “The Prophetic Imagination.”
"For him, Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew Bible, is “a real character and an active agent,” he said in a lecture in 2023 — a God that is disappointed in mankind’s failings and yet promises “a new world that is possible.”
"In “The Prophetic Imagination,” Dr. Brueggemann drew a sharp contrast between this God and the gods of the empire. The God of Moses, he wrote, “acts in his lordly freedom” and “is extrapolated from no social reality.” Unlike Pharaoh’s gods — who were invented to legitimize power and preserve the status quo — Yahweh disrupts it, calling people toward justice, liberation and hope.
Among his other books are “Cadences of Home: Preaching Among Exiles” (1997), “A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming” (1998), “The Creative Word: Canon as a Model for Biblical Education” (1982), “David’s Truth: In Israel’s Imagination and Memory” (1985) and “The Collected Sermons of Walter Brueggemann” (2011)."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/brueggemannwalter
The NYT obit frequently cites: Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination: A Theological Biography / Conrad Kanagy (2023).
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June 17 updates:
fivebooks.com best 21st century Korean novels in English translation >176 featherbear:
LARB June 16: the alt-right; allegorical novel about complicity by Boris Fishman -- June 17: Lynne Tillmann & perception; Catherine Lacey's Mobius book >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: so you want to be a genius -- June 17: review of James Frey's new novel; Merve Emre interviews Catherine Lacey regarding her Mobius book; WHAT'S HAPPENING TO READING?! >155 featherbear:
NYT June 17: Joyce Carol Oates prep school predator novel; profile of Jonas Hassen Khemiri; Toni Morrison as editor; E. Jean Carroll's memoir of the Trump sexual assault trial >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 17: 4 books on humans & AI >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 15: submersibles -- June 16: love affair novel in Malaysia; new Joseph Smith bio -- July 17: Lee Cole's companion novel to his Groundskeeping >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
fivebooks.com best 21st century Korean novels in English translation >176 featherbear:
LARB June 16: the alt-right; allegorical novel about complicity by Boris Fishman -- June 17: Lynne Tillmann & perception; Catherine Lacey's Mobius book >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: so you want to be a genius -- June 17: review of James Frey's new novel; Merve Emre interviews Catherine Lacey regarding her Mobius book; WHAT'S HAPPENING TO READING?! >155 featherbear:
NYT June 17: Joyce Carol Oates prep school predator novel; profile of Jonas Hassen Khemiri; Toni Morrison as editor; E. Jean Carroll's memoir of the Trump sexual assault trial >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 17: 4 books on humans & AI >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 15: submersibles -- June 16: love affair novel in Malaysia; new Joseph Smith bio -- July 17: Lee Cole's companion novel to his Groundskeeping >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
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TLS June 20, 2025|No. 6377
Featured
Summer books 2025: Twenty-four TLS writers share their summer reading.
Camilla Nord. Are you hurting?: The mental illness epidemic. Review of: NO MORE NORMAL: Mental health in an age of over-diagnosis / Alastair Santhouse -- THE AGE OF DIAGNOSIS: Sickness, health and why medicine has gone too far / Suzanne O’Sullivan -- SEARCHING FOR NORMAL: A new approach to understanding mental health, distress and neurodiversity / Sami Timimi.
Peter Geoghegan. Power to the people: Mass protest in the modern era. Review of: MORAL AMBITION: Stop wasting your talent and start making a difference / Rutger Bregman -- MULTITUDES: How crowds made the modern world / Dan Hancox -- SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT THIS IS AN EMERGENCY: The nonviolent struggle for our planet’s future / Lynne Jones -- SHOULDER TO SHOULDER: A queer history of solidarity, coalition and chaos / Jake Hall -- POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Use your voice, change the world / Danny Sriskandarajah -- MANIFESTO FOR WORLD REVOLUTION Second edition / Kalle Lasn.
Catherine Taylor. Young and damned: Three teen-centric novels arrive at a time of national soul-searching. Review of: BACK IN THE DAY / Oliver Lovrenski; translated by Nichola Smalley -- FUN AND GAMES / John Patrick McHugh -- GIRL, 1983 / Linn Ullmann; translated by Martin Aitken (Hamish Hamilton).
Mary Beard (from the TLS landing page). The perils of processions.
Literature
Dina Birch. Broadbrows vs Bloomsberries: Influencers who shaped the public’s taste in an earlier era. Review of: RECOMMENDED!: The influencers who changed how we read / Nicola Wilson.
Houman Barekat. Private citizens: A satire of identity politics at the University of Oxford. Review of: SHIBBOLETH / Thomas Peermohamed Lambert (Europa Editions).
Patricia Craig. At some party: An incident of sexual misconduct hangs over a Belfast community. Review of: THE BENEFACTORS / Wendy Erskine.
In Brief Review of: YOUR STEPS ON THE STAIRS / Antonio Muñoz Molina; translated by Curtis Bauer.
Arts
James Hall. Wriggling and fluttering: Rudoph II and the empirical study of nature. Review of the exhibition THE EXPERIENCE OF NATURE: Art in Prague at the court of Rudolph II, Louvre, Paris, until June 30 -- L’EXPÉRIENCE DE LA NATURE: Les arts à Prague à la cour de Rodolphe II / Philippe Malgouyres and Olivia Savatier Sjöholm.
Rod Mengham. War work: The Philadelphia Museum’s huge wartime holdings. Review of the exhibition BOOM: Art and design in the 1940s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, until September 1.
In Brief Review of: THE LAST SOVIET ARTIST / Victoria Lomasko; translated by Bela Shayevich (n+1).
Philosophy
Victoria Kahn. From dance cards to voting: How consumer choice became far removed from economics. Review of: THE AGE OF CHOICE: A history of freedom in modern life / Sophia Rosenfeld.
Clarissa Hyman. Our daily bread: A philosophy for eating. Review of: HOW THE WORLD EATS: A global food philosophy / Julian Baggini.
Regina Rini. Best of frenemies: Aristotle and the Trump-Musk bromance. (Essay)
Medical Culture
Wendy Moore. Unclean, unclean!: The dark history of leprosy discrimination. Review of: OUTCAST: A history of leprosy, humanity and the modern world / Oliver Basciano (Faber).
In Brief Review of: WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER / Hanna Thomas Uose.
Media, Society, History, & Culture
Melanie Bigold. Love’s lost and found: A pioneering personal advice column. Review of: “I HUMBLY BEG YOUR SPEEDY ANSWER”: Letters on love and marriage from the world’s first personal advice column / Mary Beth Norton, editor (Princeton University Press).
D.J. Taylor. ‘In the Pepys class’: The waspish diaries of an establishment insider. Review of: THE BENSON DIARY Volume I: 1885–1906; Volume II: 1907–1925 / Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam, editors (Pallas Athene).
In Brief Review of: UPLAND: A journey through time and the hills / Ian Crofton.
In Brief Review of: UN FILS DE PACHA OTTOMAN AU LIBAN: Souvenirs d’enfance de Saïd-Naum Duhani, fils de Naum Pacha, gouverneur du Mont-Liban (1892–1902) / Sinan Kuneralp, editor (Isis Press (Istanbul)).
In Brief Review of: GHOSTS, TROLLS AND THE HIDDEN PEOPLE: An anthology of Icelandic folk legends / Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, editor.
Food & Sports
Darra Goldstein. Recipes for trouble: Food and culinary tradition as a casualties of conflict. Review of: THE LAST SWEET BITE: When war changes the menu / Michael Shaikh (Footnote Press).
Miranda France. Small things like these: Everyday objects as emotional anchors. Review of: THE HEART-SHAPED TIN: Love, loss and kitchen objects / Bee Wilson.
Mike Jakeman. Failing the cricket test: How not to grow a sport. Review of: TEST CRICKET: A history / Tim Wigmore.
Featured
Summer books 2025: Twenty-four TLS writers share their summer reading.
Camilla Nord. Are you hurting?: The mental illness epidemic. Review of: NO MORE NORMAL: Mental health in an age of over-diagnosis / Alastair Santhouse -- THE AGE OF DIAGNOSIS: Sickness, health and why medicine has gone too far / Suzanne O’Sullivan -- SEARCHING FOR NORMAL: A new approach to understanding mental health, distress and neurodiversity / Sami Timimi.
Peter Geoghegan. Power to the people: Mass protest in the modern era. Review of: MORAL AMBITION: Stop wasting your talent and start making a difference / Rutger Bregman -- MULTITUDES: How crowds made the modern world / Dan Hancox -- SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE BUT THIS IS AN EMERGENCY: The nonviolent struggle for our planet’s future / Lynne Jones -- SHOULDER TO SHOULDER: A queer history of solidarity, coalition and chaos / Jake Hall -- POWER TO THE PEOPLE: Use your voice, change the world / Danny Sriskandarajah -- MANIFESTO FOR WORLD REVOLUTION Second edition / Kalle Lasn.
Catherine Taylor. Young and damned: Three teen-centric novels arrive at a time of national soul-searching. Review of: BACK IN THE DAY / Oliver Lovrenski; translated by Nichola Smalley -- FUN AND GAMES / John Patrick McHugh -- GIRL, 1983 / Linn Ullmann; translated by Martin Aitken (Hamish Hamilton).
Mary Beard (from the TLS landing page). The perils of processions.
Literature
Dina Birch. Broadbrows vs Bloomsberries: Influencers who shaped the public’s taste in an earlier era. Review of: RECOMMENDED!: The influencers who changed how we read / Nicola Wilson.
Houman Barekat. Private citizens: A satire of identity politics at the University of Oxford. Review of: SHIBBOLETH / Thomas Peermohamed Lambert (Europa Editions).
Patricia Craig. At some party: An incident of sexual misconduct hangs over a Belfast community. Review of: THE BENEFACTORS / Wendy Erskine.
In Brief Review of: YOUR STEPS ON THE STAIRS / Antonio Muñoz Molina; translated by Curtis Bauer.
Arts
James Hall. Wriggling and fluttering: Rudoph II and the empirical study of nature. Review of the exhibition THE EXPERIENCE OF NATURE: Art in Prague at the court of Rudolph II, Louvre, Paris, until June 30 -- L’EXPÉRIENCE DE LA NATURE: Les arts à Prague à la cour de Rodolphe II / Philippe Malgouyres and Olivia Savatier Sjöholm.
Rod Mengham. War work: The Philadelphia Museum’s huge wartime holdings. Review of the exhibition BOOM: Art and design in the 1940s, Philadelphia Museum of Art, until September 1.
In Brief Review of: THE LAST SOVIET ARTIST / Victoria Lomasko; translated by Bela Shayevich (n+1).
Philosophy
Victoria Kahn. From dance cards to voting: How consumer choice became far removed from economics. Review of: THE AGE OF CHOICE: A history of freedom in modern life / Sophia Rosenfeld.
Clarissa Hyman. Our daily bread: A philosophy for eating. Review of: HOW THE WORLD EATS: A global food philosophy / Julian Baggini.
Regina Rini. Best of frenemies: Aristotle and the Trump-Musk bromance. (Essay)
Medical Culture
Wendy Moore. Unclean, unclean!: The dark history of leprosy discrimination. Review of: OUTCAST: A history of leprosy, humanity and the modern world / Oliver Basciano (Faber).
In Brief Review of: WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER / Hanna Thomas Uose.
Media, Society, History, & Culture
Melanie Bigold. Love’s lost and found: A pioneering personal advice column. Review of: “I HUMBLY BEG YOUR SPEEDY ANSWER”: Letters on love and marriage from the world’s first personal advice column / Mary Beth Norton, editor (Princeton University Press).
D.J. Taylor. ‘In the Pepys class’: The waspish diaries of an establishment insider. Review of: THE BENSON DIARY Volume I: 1885–1906; Volume II: 1907–1925 / Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam, editors (Pallas Athene).
In Brief Review of: UPLAND: A journey through time and the hills / Ian Crofton.
In Brief Review of: UN FILS DE PACHA OTTOMAN AU LIBAN: Souvenirs d’enfance de Saïd-Naum Duhani, fils de Naum Pacha, gouverneur du Mont-Liban (1892–1902) / Sinan Kuneralp, editor (Isis Press (Istanbul)).
In Brief Review of: GHOSTS, TROLLS AND THE HIDDEN PEOPLE: An anthology of Icelandic folk legends / Dagrún Ósk Jónsdóttir, editor.
Food & Sports
Darra Goldstein. Recipes for trouble: Food and culinary tradition as a casualties of conflict. Review of: THE LAST SWEET BITE: When war changes the menu / Michael Shaikh (Footnote Press).
Miranda France. Small things like these: Everyday objects as emotional anchors. Review of: THE HEART-SHAPED TIN: Love, loss and kitchen objects / Bee Wilson.
Mike Jakeman. Failing the cricket test: How not to grow a sport. Review of: TEST CRICKET: A history / Tim Wigmore.
188featherbear
June 19 updates:
Atlantic June 18: murderland >136 featherbear:
The Critic (UK): June 19: terrorist attack in London in 2005 >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 13: the mind plays tricks -- June 16: Wendy Erskine Belfast novel -- June 17: Marina Warner on the meaning of sanctuary; novel w/great sex scenes -- June 18: Great Black Hope -- June 19: Molly Jong-Fast's memoir of her mother; Glasgow Boys wins Carnegie Medal >137 featherbear:
LARB June 18: truth in cinema -- June 18: economic nationalism & conspiracies; Joan Didion's diary >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 18: recent books on the passion for reading; book banning in Pensacola, Fla. >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: Korean nuclear diaspora >155 featherbear:
NYT June 18: novels about dog disputes & grandfathers; womenswear designer Claire McCardell -- June 19: revisiting Tutola's Palm Wine Drunkard >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 19: Texas history >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 18: rich people; fire fighting as the climate changes -- June 19: womenswear designer; 2 books on a Weimar-era sexologist >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 18: murderland >136 featherbear:
The Critic (UK): June 19: terrorist attack in London in 2005 >134 featherbear:
Guardian June 13: the mind plays tricks -- June 16: Wendy Erskine Belfast novel -- June 17: Marina Warner on the meaning of sanctuary; novel w/great sex scenes -- June 18: Great Black Hope -- June 19: Molly Jong-Fast's memoir of her mother; Glasgow Boys wins Carnegie Medal >137 featherbear:
LARB June 18: truth in cinema -- June 18: economic nationalism & conspiracies; Joan Didion's diary >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 18: recent books on the passion for reading; book banning in Pensacola, Fla. >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 16: Korean nuclear diaspora >155 featherbear:
NYT June 18: novels about dog disputes & grandfathers; womenswear designer Claire McCardell -- June 19: revisiting Tutola's Palm Wine Drunkard >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 19: Texas history >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 18: rich people; fire fighting as the climate changes -- June 19: womenswear designer; 2 books on a Weimar-era sexologist >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
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Edward Anders, 1926-2025
Michael S. Rosenwald. NYT, 06/19/2025: Edward Anders, Who Duped Nazis and Illuminated the Cosmos, Dies at 98. "His research unraveled mysteries about the solar system and the demise of the dinosaurs. In retirement, he turned his attention to the Holocaust." Temporarily unlocked
"Edward Anders, a cosmochemist who unraveled mysteries about the solar system and the wildfires that helped wipe out the dinosaurs — and who then, in retirement, uncovered the identities of thousands of Jews from his hometown who were killed in the Holocaust — died on June 1 in San Mateo, Calif. He was 98.
"At the University of Chicago, his academic home for more than 30 years beginning in 1955, he conducted a series of groundbreaking studies into the early history of the solar system.
"He demonstrated that meteorites were fragments from asteroids and not, as was believed at the time, debris from the moon or comets. He quantified the elements of the solar system in a journal article that has been cited more than 14,000 times. And he uncovered evidence of the global wildfires that helped lead to the dinosaurs’ extinction.
"... after retiring, he began to revisit his memories in greater detail. He wrote a memoir, “Amidst Latvians During the Holocaust” (2011), and created a database of the more than 7,000 Jews who were alive in Liepaja when the Germans rolled in."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/andersedward
Michael S. Rosenwald. NYT, 06/19/2025: Edward Anders, Who Duped Nazis and Illuminated the Cosmos, Dies at 98. "His research unraveled mysteries about the solar system and the demise of the dinosaurs. In retirement, he turned his attention to the Holocaust." Temporarily unlocked
"Edward Anders, a cosmochemist who unraveled mysteries about the solar system and the wildfires that helped wipe out the dinosaurs — and who then, in retirement, uncovered the identities of thousands of Jews from his hometown who were killed in the Holocaust — died on June 1 in San Mateo, Calif. He was 98.
"At the University of Chicago, his academic home for more than 30 years beginning in 1955, he conducted a series of groundbreaking studies into the early history of the solar system.
"He demonstrated that meteorites were fragments from asteroids and not, as was believed at the time, debris from the moon or comets. He quantified the elements of the solar system in a journal article that has been cited more than 14,000 times. And he uncovered evidence of the global wildfires that helped lead to the dinosaurs’ extinction.
"... after retiring, he began to revisit his memories in greater detail. He wrote a memoir, “Amidst Latvians During the Holocaust” (2011), and created a database of the more than 7,000 Jews who were alive in Liepaja when the Germans rolled in."
His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/andersedward
190featherbear
June 20 updates:
Aeon June 20: French SF from the early 20th century >170 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 19: Arthur C. Clarke best 2025 sf nominations >176 featherbear:
LARB June 20: the Russian superfluous man, updated >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 20: origin of 4 famous pen names >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 18: Anne Enright recommends 3 books by Australian or New Zealand author you may not have heard of >155 featherbear:
WaPo June 20: Hawaiian land; novels about dissatisfaction & grief; Talking Heads >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Aeon June 20: French SF from the early 20th century >170 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 19: Arthur C. Clarke best 2025 sf nominations >176 featherbear:
LARB June 20: the Russian superfluous man, updated >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 20: origin of 4 famous pen names >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 18: Anne Enright recommends 3 books by Australian or New Zealand author you may not have heard of >155 featherbear:
WaPo June 20: Hawaiian land; novels about dissatisfaction & grief; Talking Heads >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
191featherbear
June 21 updates:
Atlantic June 21: Pip Adam's space travel novel >136 featherbear:
LARB June 21: interview with the author of The Antidote >141 featherbear:
NYT June 21: J Hoberman on the NY avant-garde; essays of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 21: Pip Adam's space travel novel >136 featherbear:
LARB June 21: interview with the author of The Antidote >141 featherbear:
NYT June 21: J Hoberman on the NY avant-garde; essays of Honorée Fanonne Jeffers >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
192featherbear
June 22 updates:
Guardian June 22: Dickens & theater exhibition >137 featherbear:
LARB June 22: interview with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, author of The Sisters >141 featherbear:
NYT June 22: review of Khemiri's The Sisters >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 22: shepherding; history & modern love novel >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 22: Dickens & theater exhibition >137 featherbear:
LARB June 22: interview with Jonas Hassen Khemiri, author of The Sisters >141 featherbear:
NYT June 22: review of Khemiri's The Sisters >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 22: shepherding; history & modern love novel >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
193featherbear
June 23 updates:
Guardian June 22: Booktok's new trend >137 featherbear:
LitHub June 23: Ed Simon on the attraction of illiberalism for writers >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 23: feeding the world >155 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 22: Booktok's new trend >137 featherbear:
LitHub June 23: Ed Simon on the attraction of illiberalism for writers >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 23: feeding the world >155 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
194featherbear
Owen Yingling. OY's substack, 06/14/2025: The Cultural Decline of Literary Fiction.
195featherbear
June 24 updates:
Atlantic June 24: why men should read fiction >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 24: resurrected German novel; history of the Guardian; novel about rich & powerful New Yorkers >137 featherbear:
LARB June 24: Taipei/Taiwan in novels >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 23: Gen Z confronts a Vegas buffet of carnality in 2 books >155 featherbear:
NYT June 23: 21st century Berlin in novels >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 24: why men should read fiction >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 24: resurrected German novel; history of the Guardian; novel about rich & powerful New Yorkers >137 featherbear:
LARB June 24: Taipei/Taiwan in novels >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 23: Gen Z confronts a Vegas buffet of carnality in 2 books >155 featherbear:
NYT June 23: 21st century Berlin in novels >131 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
196featherbear
TLS June 27, 2025|No. 6378
Featured
Mary Beard. Lighting up in the library. (From the TLS landing page for this week)
James Marcus. ‘A dear little genius’: Mark Twain and the making of an American literary revolution. Review of: MARK TWAIN: a life / Ron Chernow.
Bryan Karetnyk. Inventing a history: How Stalin shaped the Soviet collective memory. Review of: STALIN'S USABLE PAST: A critical edition of the 1937 “Short History of the USSR” / David Brandenberger, editor.
Edward N. Luttwack. Triumph at Camp David, disaster in Iran: Jimmy Carter’s abrasive foreign policy adviser and rival to Henry Kissinger. Review of: ZBIG: The life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Cold War prophet / Edward Luce.
Henry Hitchings. Threads of defiance: The dandy’s role as icon and irritant. Review of: THE DANDY: A people’s history of sartorial splendour / Peter K. Andersson (Oxford University Press).
Literature
Nina Allen. Echoes from next door: The flip side of a fractured relationship – and how to tell it. Review of: THE MÖBIUS BOOK / Catherine Lacey.
Douglas Field. Down the river: Reconsidering the legacy of Huck’s ‘enormously admirable’ sidekick. Review of: JIM: The lives and afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s comrade / Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Yale University Press).
Nat Segnit. Let the repellent in: The biographer of Philip Roth addresses his own #MeToo scandal. Review of: CANCELED LIVES: My father, my scandal, and me / Blake Bailey (Skyhorse Publishing).
Oonagh Devitt Tremblay. A thousand tiny thefts: Friendship undone by one version of the truth. Review of: FRIENDS AND LOVERS / Nolwenn Le Blevennec; translated by Madeleine Rogers (Peirene).
Emily Goulding. Among the trees: A group of friends spends a week in a Danish cabin. Review of: WAIST DEEP / Linea Maja Ernst; translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg (Cape).
Mia Levitin. Come dine with them: Bourgeois pretension and rising tensions in three dinner-party novels. Review of: JUST A LITTLE DINNER / Cécile Tlili; translated by Katherine Gregor -- COOKING IN THE WRONG CENTURY / Teresa Präauer; translated by Eleanor Updegraff (Pushkin Press) -- AFTERTASTE / Daria Lavelle.
In Brief Review of: TOOTHPULL OF ST DUNSTAN / Kevin Davey (Aaaargh!).
In Brief Review of : OPEN, HEAVEN / Seán Hewitt.
Arts
Russell Williams. Furniture music: The playful, melancholic genius of Erik Satie. Review of: Erik Satie / Ian Penman (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
Guy Dammann. Nothing is really hidden: A Chekhovian opera from Colin Matthews and William Boyd. Review of Colin Matthews' A VISIT TO FRIENDS, Snape Maltings, Suffolk.
Michael Caines. They will rock you: Close harmonies, smooth grooves, infighting and ‘the bag’: making an album on stag. Review of David Adjmi's STEREOPHONIC, Duke of York’s Theatre, London, until October 11.
History & Culture
Catharine Edwards. A Roman reclines: Life’s pleasures immortalized in a marble funerary sculpture. Review of: THE REMARKABLE LIFE, DEATH, AND AFTERLIFE OF AN ORDINARY ROMAN: A social history / Jeremy Hartnett.
Danielle Shaw. Pulled to a muddy death: A coroner’s view of Tudor ends. Review of: AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORY OF TUDOR ENGLAND: From daily life to sudden death / Steven Gunn and Tomasz Grom.
Oliver Basciano. At the last gasp: Different ways of dying across the British Isles. Review of: NO ORDINARY DEATHS: A people’s history of mortality / Molly Conisbee.
Kristin Roth-Ey. Deep, deep cover: Russia’s investment in spies who assume false foreign identities. Review of: THE ILLEGALS: Russia’s most audacious spies and the plot to infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Francine Hirsch. Living with two tyrants: Impossible moral choices in wartime Smolensk. Review of: CRUCIBLES OF POWER: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi rule / Michael David-Fox.
Seb Falk. Magnificent men and women: Flight’s glamorous beginnings. Review of: THE BIG HOP: The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic and into the future / David Rooney -- CAPTAIN DE HAVILLAND’S MOTH: Tales of high adventure from the golden age of aviation / Alexander Norman.
Clifford Thompson. Integrate or separate: Two competing visions of Black liberation in 1960s Detroit. Review of: THE BLACK UTOPIANS: Visions of hope and resistance in America / Aaron Robertson -- THE CONTAINMENT: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the battle for racial justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Mark Nayler. Blurred lines: Travels in mountain country where nations have little meaning. Review of: WALKING EUROPE’S LAST WILDERNESS: A journey through the Carpathian Mountains / Nick Thorpe.
Tom Lathan. The wilderness and the world: A lyrical nature memoir set in a remote corner of the Balkans. Review of: LIFELINES: Searching for home in the mountains of Greece / Julian Hoffman.
Jane Caplan. Making its mark on culture: The repeated rise and fall of the tattoo. Review of: TATTOOS: The untold history of a modern art / Matt Lodder.
Irina Dumitrescu. Medieval management theory: A miracle-working consultant. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: AMAZONS: The history behind the legend / David Braund (Cambridge University Press).
In Brief Review of: THE ISLAND OF THE POPE: Catholics in the Aegean archipelago between empire and nation-state, 1770-1830 / Dimitris Kousouris (Berghahn).
In Brief Review of: WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE: Diamonds, murder and a clash of worlds in the Amazon / Alex Cuadros.
In Brief Review of: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MONTAGU: Dukedom, debauchery and the demise of a dynasty / Robert Wainwright (Allen & Unwin).
In Brief Review of: WE WERE THERE: How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain / Lanre Bakare.
Featured
Mary Beard. Lighting up in the library. (From the TLS landing page for this week)
James Marcus. ‘A dear little genius’: Mark Twain and the making of an American literary revolution. Review of: MARK TWAIN: a life / Ron Chernow.
Bryan Karetnyk. Inventing a history: How Stalin shaped the Soviet collective memory. Review of: STALIN'S USABLE PAST: A critical edition of the 1937 “Short History of the USSR” / David Brandenberger, editor.
Edward N. Luttwack. Triumph at Camp David, disaster in Iran: Jimmy Carter’s abrasive foreign policy adviser and rival to Henry Kissinger. Review of: ZBIG: The life of Zbigniew Brzezinski, America’s Cold War prophet / Edward Luce.
Henry Hitchings. Threads of defiance: The dandy’s role as icon and irritant. Review of: THE DANDY: A people’s history of sartorial splendour / Peter K. Andersson (Oxford University Press).
Literature
Nina Allen. Echoes from next door: The flip side of a fractured relationship – and how to tell it. Review of: THE MÖBIUS BOOK / Catherine Lacey.
Douglas Field. Down the river: Reconsidering the legacy of Huck’s ‘enormously admirable’ sidekick. Review of: JIM: The lives and afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s comrade / Shelley Fisher Fishkin (Yale University Press).
Nat Segnit. Let the repellent in: The biographer of Philip Roth addresses his own #MeToo scandal. Review of: CANCELED LIVES: My father, my scandal, and me / Blake Bailey (Skyhorse Publishing).
Oonagh Devitt Tremblay. A thousand tiny thefts: Friendship undone by one version of the truth. Review of: FRIENDS AND LOVERS / Nolwenn Le Blevennec; translated by Madeleine Rogers (Peirene).
Emily Goulding. Among the trees: A group of friends spends a week in a Danish cabin. Review of: WAIST DEEP / Linea Maja Ernst; translated by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg (Cape).
Mia Levitin. Come dine with them: Bourgeois pretension and rising tensions in three dinner-party novels. Review of: JUST A LITTLE DINNER / Cécile Tlili; translated by Katherine Gregor -- COOKING IN THE WRONG CENTURY / Teresa Präauer; translated by Eleanor Updegraff (Pushkin Press) -- AFTERTASTE / Daria Lavelle.
In Brief Review of: TOOTHPULL OF ST DUNSTAN / Kevin Davey (Aaaargh!).
In Brief Review of : OPEN, HEAVEN / Seán Hewitt.
Arts
Russell Williams. Furniture music: The playful, melancholic genius of Erik Satie. Review of: Erik Satie / Ian Penman (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
Guy Dammann. Nothing is really hidden: A Chekhovian opera from Colin Matthews and William Boyd. Review of Colin Matthews' A VISIT TO FRIENDS, Snape Maltings, Suffolk.
Michael Caines. They will rock you: Close harmonies, smooth grooves, infighting and ‘the bag’: making an album on stag. Review of David Adjmi's STEREOPHONIC, Duke of York’s Theatre, London, until October 11.
History & Culture
Catharine Edwards. A Roman reclines: Life’s pleasures immortalized in a marble funerary sculpture. Review of: THE REMARKABLE LIFE, DEATH, AND AFTERLIFE OF AN ORDINARY ROMAN: A social history / Jeremy Hartnett.
Danielle Shaw. Pulled to a muddy death: A coroner’s view of Tudor ends. Review of: AN ACCIDENTAL HISTORY OF TUDOR ENGLAND: From daily life to sudden death / Steven Gunn and Tomasz Grom.
Oliver Basciano. At the last gasp: Different ways of dying across the British Isles. Review of: NO ORDINARY DEATHS: A people’s history of mortality / Molly Conisbee.
Kristin Roth-Ey. Deep, deep cover: Russia’s investment in spies who assume false foreign identities. Review of: THE ILLEGALS: Russia’s most audacious spies and the plot to infiltrate the West / Shaun Walker.
Francine Hirsch. Living with two tyrants: Impossible moral choices in wartime Smolensk. Review of: CRUCIBLES OF POWER: Smolensk under Stalinist and Nazi rule / Michael David-Fox.
Seb Falk. Magnificent men and women: Flight’s glamorous beginnings. Review of: THE BIG HOP: The first non-stop flight across the Atlantic and into the future / David Rooney -- CAPTAIN DE HAVILLAND’S MOTH: Tales of high adventure from the golden age of aviation / Alexander Norman.
Clifford Thompson. Integrate or separate: Two competing visions of Black liberation in 1960s Detroit. Review of: THE BLACK UTOPIANS: Visions of hope and resistance in America / Aaron Robertson -- THE CONTAINMENT: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the battle for racial justice in the North / Michelle Adams.
Mark Nayler. Blurred lines: Travels in mountain country where nations have little meaning. Review of: WALKING EUROPE’S LAST WILDERNESS: A journey through the Carpathian Mountains / Nick Thorpe.
Tom Lathan. The wilderness and the world: A lyrical nature memoir set in a remote corner of the Balkans. Review of: LIFELINES: Searching for home in the mountains of Greece / Julian Hoffman.
Jane Caplan. Making its mark on culture: The repeated rise and fall of the tattoo. Review of: TATTOOS: The untold history of a modern art / Matt Lodder.
Irina Dumitrescu. Medieval management theory: A miracle-working consultant. (Essay)
In Brief Review of: AMAZONS: The history behind the legend / David Braund (Cambridge University Press).
In Brief Review of: THE ISLAND OF THE POPE: Catholics in the Aegean archipelago between empire and nation-state, 1770-1830 / Dimitris Kousouris (Berghahn).
In Brief Review of: WHEN WE SOLD GOD'S EYE: Diamonds, murder and a clash of worlds in the Amazon / Alex Cuadros.
In Brief Review of: THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MONTAGU: Dukedom, debauchery and the demise of a dynasty / Robert Wainwright (Allen & Unwin).
In Brief Review of: WE WERE THERE: How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain / Lanre Bakare.
197featherbear
June 26 updates:
Guardian June 25: winner of Arthur C Clarke SF award; art forgery historical novel -- June 26: demonic Catalonia novel; Russian, Chinese, & Cuban revolutions >137 featherbear:
LARB June 26: Third Reich of Dreams >141 featherbear:
WaPo June 24: Lisa Murkowski memoir; Virgil Abloh bio; Hal Ebbott novel on male friendship -- June 25: fair use & AI legal decision; Amy Bloom novel on a found family -- June 26: 3 Aciman novellas; Tanenhaus's Buckley bio >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
Guardian June 25: winner of Arthur C Clarke SF award; art forgery historical novel -- June 26: demonic Catalonia novel; Russian, Chinese, & Cuban revolutions >137 featherbear:
LARB June 26: Third Reich of Dreams >141 featherbear:
WaPo June 24: Lisa Murkowski memoir; Virgil Abloh bio; Hal Ebbott novel on male friendship -- June 25: fair use & AI legal decision; Amy Bloom novel on a found family -- June 26: 3 Aciman novellas; Tanenhaus's Buckley bio >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
198featherbear
Bill Moyers, 1934-2025
Janny Scott. NYT, 06/26/2025: Bill Moyers, Presidential Aide and Veteran of Public TV, Dies at 91.
"Present on Air Force One in Dallas when Johnson took the oath of office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Moyers played a pivotal role in the inception of Johnson’s Great Society programs, and was the president’s top administrative assistant and press secretary when Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in the Vietnam War.
"Mr. Moyers resigned from the administration in December 1966 at age 32, finalizing an irreparable falling out between the hot-tempered, flamboyant Johnson, who demanded unwavering loyalty, and the cool, self-contained Mr. Moyers, whom Johnson had denied several foreign policy positions. The two men never reconciled. In his 1971 memoir, “The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969,” Johnson mentioned Mr. Moyers only fleetingly, reducing him to little more than a footnote.
"In his four decades as a television correspondent and commentator, Mr. Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, explored issues ranging from poverty, violence, income inequality and racial bigotry to the role of money in politics, threats to the Constitution and climate change. His documentaries and reports won him the top prizes in television journalism, more than 30 Emmy Awards and comparisons to Edward R. Murrow, his revered predecessor at CBS.
"His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.”
"In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”
"He worked with Kennedy’s speechwriter Ted Sorensen to craft Johnson’s first statements to the country, and became the link between the Johnson and Kennedy circles. As the Johnson era began, Mr. Moyers’ familiarity with the bureaucracy helped him organize and guide the 14 task forces of government officials and outside experts that produced most of the Great Society domestic legislation.
"In 1967, he became publisher of Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper. He strengthened the paper’s Washington coverage, added international bureaus and hired Saul Bellow to cover the 1967 Mideast war. The paper won two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. But its conservative owner, Harry F. Guggenheim, said to be annoyed by the “left wingers” running the paper, sold his majority share in 1970, having turned down a higher offer from Mr. Moyers, who resigned.
"In 1976, said to be frustrated by the limited resources in public television, Mr. Moyers joined CBS, the top commercial network, as chief correspondent for the documentary program “CBS Reports.” He produced documentaries on subjects ranging from arson in the South Bronx to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. But he objected to the show’s irregular schedule: To have more impact, he said, the documentaries needed to appear more often, with more promotion and in better time slots. Rebuffed, he returned to PBS.
"Mr. Moyers’s six hourlong interviews with Joseph Campbell, who died in 1987, shortly before they aired, were among the first productions made by the new company. Tens of thousands of videotapes of the interviews were sold, and viewers formed study groups to watch them. A companion book — championed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was then an editor at Doubleday — became a best seller, as did earlier books by Mr. Campbell.
"Between the late 1980s and 2007, Mr. Moyers and Public Affairs Television turned out nearly 100 documentaries and reports. The subject of one five-part series in 1998 was addiction, a problem with which the Mr. Moyers’ eldest son, William, had struggled. “Bill Moyers Journal” returned to the air from 2007 to 2010, starting with an investigation of the shortcomings of the news media in the run-up to the war in Iraq."
Bill Moyers's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/moyersbill
Fred A. Bernstein. WaPo, 06/26/2025: Bill Moyers, eminence of public affairs broadcasting, dies at 91. Temporarily unlocked
Janny Scott. NYT, 06/26/2025: Bill Moyers, Presidential Aide and Veteran of Public TV, Dies at 91.
"Present on Air Force One in Dallas when Johnson took the oath of office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Mr. Moyers played a pivotal role in the inception of Johnson’s Great Society programs, and was the president’s top administrative assistant and press secretary when Johnson sent hundreds of thousands of troops to fight in the Vietnam War.
"Mr. Moyers resigned from the administration in December 1966 at age 32, finalizing an irreparable falling out between the hot-tempered, flamboyant Johnson, who demanded unwavering loyalty, and the cool, self-contained Mr. Moyers, whom Johnson had denied several foreign policy positions. The two men never reconciled. In his 1971 memoir, “The Vantage Point: Perspectives of the Presidency, 1963-1969,” Johnson mentioned Mr. Moyers only fleetingly, reducing him to little more than a footnote.
"In his four decades as a television correspondent and commentator, Mr. Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, explored issues ranging from poverty, violence, income inequality and racial bigotry to the role of money in politics, threats to the Constitution and climate change. His documentaries and reports won him the top prizes in television journalism, more than 30 Emmy Awards and comparisons to Edward R. Murrow, his revered predecessor at CBS.
"His 1988 PBS series, “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” drew 30 million viewers, posthumously turned Mr. Campbell — at the time a little-known mythologist — into a public broadcasting star, and popularized the Campbell dictum “Follow your bliss.”
"In a 2004 retrospective, the conservative website FrontPageMag.com called him a “sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent.”
"He worked with Kennedy’s speechwriter Ted Sorensen to craft Johnson’s first statements to the country, and became the link between the Johnson and Kennedy circles. As the Johnson era began, Mr. Moyers’ familiarity with the bureaucracy helped him organize and guide the 14 task forces of government officials and outside experts that produced most of the Great Society domestic legislation.
"In 1967, he became publisher of Newsday, the Long Island daily newspaper. He strengthened the paper’s Washington coverage, added international bureaus and hired Saul Bellow to cover the 1967 Mideast war. The paper won two Pulitzer Prizes during his tenure. But its conservative owner, Harry F. Guggenheim, said to be annoyed by the “left wingers” running the paper, sold his majority share in 1970, having turned down a higher offer from Mr. Moyers, who resigned.
"In 1976, said to be frustrated by the limited resources in public television, Mr. Moyers joined CBS, the top commercial network, as chief correspondent for the documentary program “CBS Reports.” He produced documentaries on subjects ranging from arson in the South Bronx to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. But he objected to the show’s irregular schedule: To have more impact, he said, the documentaries needed to appear more often, with more promotion and in better time slots. Rebuffed, he returned to PBS.
"Mr. Moyers’s six hourlong interviews with Joseph Campbell, who died in 1987, shortly before they aired, were among the first productions made by the new company. Tens of thousands of videotapes of the interviews were sold, and viewers formed study groups to watch them. A companion book — championed by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was then an editor at Doubleday — became a best seller, as did earlier books by Mr. Campbell.
"Between the late 1980s and 2007, Mr. Moyers and Public Affairs Television turned out nearly 100 documentaries and reports. The subject of one five-part series in 1998 was addiction, a problem with which the Mr. Moyers’ eldest son, William, had struggled. “Bill Moyers Journal” returned to the air from 2007 to 2010, starting with an investigation of the shortcomings of the news media in the run-up to the war in Iraq."
Bill Moyers's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/moyersbill
Fred A. Bernstein. WaPo, 06/26/2025: Bill Moyers, eminence of public affairs broadcasting, dies at 91. Temporarily unlocked
199featherbear
June 27 updates:
Atlantic June 27: Karen Russell's novel The Antidote; Toni Morrison's legacy as author & editor >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 27: the books in Richard Flanagan's life >137 featherbear:
LARB June 27: 2 books on the Chinese writing system >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 27: David Crystal on bookish words >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 27: Sue Halpern recommends "lighthearted mysteries" >155 featherbear:
NYT June 27: teenage mothers novel; Lauren Groff revisits Mansfield Park >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 27: interpolation in literature, e.g. Proust >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 27: memoir w/rhododenrons & Virginia Woolf >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
Atlantic June 27: Karen Russell's novel The Antidote; Toni Morrison's legacy as author & editor >136 featherbear:
Guardian June 27: the books in Richard Flanagan's life >137 featherbear:
LARB June 27: 2 books on the Chinese writing system >141 featherbear:
LitHub June 27: David Crystal on bookish words >150 featherbear:
New Yorker June 27: Sue Halpern recommends "lighthearted mysteries" >155 featherbear:
NYT June 27: teenage mothers novel; Lauren Groff revisits Mansfield Park >131 featherbear:
Public Books June 27: interpolation in literature, e.g. Proust >149 featherbear:
WaPo June 27: memoir w/rhododenrons & Virginia Woolf >132 featherbear:
June index: >130 featherbear:
200featherbear
June 30 updates (last update of the thread):
The Critic (UK) June 28: get rid of the classics -- June 30: Catherine Lacey's Mobius Books & (literary) classics >134 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 29: Lijia Zhang recommends 5 best 20th century Chinese fiction books >176 featherbear:
Guardian June 30: Susan Choi's Flashlight; why the Internet hates "performative reading" >137 featherbear:
LARB June 30: post-Mao reform >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 28: mailmen >155 featherbear:
NYT June 29: profile of Chris Whitaker >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 29: horror novel derived from The Bacchae -- June 30: dead poet reports from below the permafrost >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
The Critic (UK) June 28: get rid of the classics -- June 30: Catherine Lacey's Mobius Books & (literary) classics >134 featherbear:
fivebooks.com June 29: Lijia Zhang recommends 5 best 20th century Chinese fiction books >176 featherbear:
Guardian June 30: Susan Choi's Flashlight; why the Internet hates "performative reading" >137 featherbear:
LARB June 30: post-Mao reform >141 featherbear:
New Yorker June 28: mailmen >155 featherbear:
NYT June 29: profile of Chris Whitaker >131 featherbear:
WaPo June 29: horror novel derived from The Bacchae -- June 30: dead poet reports from below the permafrost >132 featherbear:
June index >130 featherbear:
201featherbear
Jane Stanton Hitchcock, 1946-2025
Penelope Green. NYT, 06/29/2025: Jane Stanton Hitchcock, 78, Dies; Crime Novelist Who Mocked High Society.
"Jane Stanton Hitchcock, a daughter of privilege who skewered the foibles of her tribe in a series of addictive crime novels, and who then uncovered a real-life crime when her mother was swindled by her accountant, died on June 23 at her home in Washington, D.C. She was 78.
"Ms. Hitchcock grew up at 10 Gracie Square, a blue-chip co-op on the East River that was once home to Gloria Vanderbilt, Brooke Astor and other Manhattan society figures. Her mother was Joan Stanton, a glamorous but chilly 1940s-era radio star famous for her role as Lois Lane on the radio version of “The Adventures of Superman.” Her father, Arthur Stanton, who adopted her when she was 9, had made a fortune importing Volkswagen cars after World War II.
"When she was 29, she married an heir of the wealthy industrialist and Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon, William Mellon Hitchcock — who had earned a bit of notoriety when he rented his mansion in Millbrook, N.Y., to the psychedelic-drug guru Timothy Leary — mixing her newish money with his gilded-age wealth.
"Reviewing her first novel, “Trick of the Eye” (1992), which involved a trompe l’oeil artist named Faith Crowell and the unsolved murder of a long-dead Long Island debutante, Bruce Allen, writing in The New York Times Book Review, said that Ms. Hitchcock “knows how to write crackling dialogue that expresses character while steadily, stealthily advancing the plot.”
"“Her books slammed the hypocrisies and excesses of the world in which she was born, but in the funniest way,” said Lynn de Rothschild, the former media executive. “She didn’t do a ‘La Côte Basque’” — Truman Capote’s infamous 1975 Esquire article that aired the dirty laundry of his society swans in thinly veiled portraits — “she never betrayed anyone. She just murdered them off.”
"“You know in the Bible where it says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?” she wrote in “Mortal Friends.” “Well, that’s why rich people invented loopholes.”
On the subject of loopholes, her book Mortal Friends chronicled the exploits of the accountant who embezzled millions from her mother & many celebrities. Kenneth Starr (no relation to the federal prosecutor) "was finally arrested and charged, and in 2011 he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The prosecutors had asked for 12 years, but the judge argued for a lighter sentence, saying that his victims were all well off and that Mr. Starr had lost his moral compass because of his affection for his fourth wife, a former pole dancer."
In the last phase of her career, she became an online poker player, the inspiration for "Bluff published in 2019, a 56-year-old socialite-turned-poker-player sets out to murder the celebrity accountant who has stolen millions from her family. It won that year’s Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence, given by the North American branch of the International Association of Crime Writers."
Her second (?) husband, journalist Jim Hoagland, died in 2022. "Ms. Hitchcock, who had been diagnosed with cancer in 2022 — “Moby Dick,” she called her tumor, with typical moxie — ordered his-and-hers headstones. Mr. Hoagland’s inscription reads, “Historical Optimist.” Hers reads, “Hysterical Pessimist.”"
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/hitchcockjanestanton
Penelope Green. NYT, 06/29/2025: Jane Stanton Hitchcock, 78, Dies; Crime Novelist Who Mocked High Society.
"Jane Stanton Hitchcock, a daughter of privilege who skewered the foibles of her tribe in a series of addictive crime novels, and who then uncovered a real-life crime when her mother was swindled by her accountant, died on June 23 at her home in Washington, D.C. She was 78.
"Ms. Hitchcock grew up at 10 Gracie Square, a blue-chip co-op on the East River that was once home to Gloria Vanderbilt, Brooke Astor and other Manhattan society figures. Her mother was Joan Stanton, a glamorous but chilly 1940s-era radio star famous for her role as Lois Lane on the radio version of “The Adventures of Superman.” Her father, Arthur Stanton, who adopted her when she was 9, had made a fortune importing Volkswagen cars after World War II.
"When she was 29, she married an heir of the wealthy industrialist and Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon, William Mellon Hitchcock — who had earned a bit of notoriety when he rented his mansion in Millbrook, N.Y., to the psychedelic-drug guru Timothy Leary — mixing her newish money with his gilded-age wealth.
"Reviewing her first novel, “Trick of the Eye” (1992), which involved a trompe l’oeil artist named Faith Crowell and the unsolved murder of a long-dead Long Island debutante, Bruce Allen, writing in The New York Times Book Review, said that Ms. Hitchcock “knows how to write crackling dialogue that expresses character while steadily, stealthily advancing the plot.”
"“Her books slammed the hypocrisies and excesses of the world in which she was born, but in the funniest way,” said Lynn de Rothschild, the former media executive. “She didn’t do a ‘La Côte Basque’” — Truman Capote’s infamous 1975 Esquire article that aired the dirty laundry of his society swans in thinly veiled portraits — “she never betrayed anyone. She just murdered them off.”
"“You know in the Bible where it says it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven?” she wrote in “Mortal Friends.” “Well, that’s why rich people invented loopholes.”
On the subject of loopholes, her book Mortal Friends chronicled the exploits of the accountant who embezzled millions from her mother & many celebrities. Kenneth Starr (no relation to the federal prosecutor) "was finally arrested and charged, and in 2011 he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The prosecutors had asked for 12 years, but the judge argued for a lighter sentence, saying that his victims were all well off and that Mr. Starr had lost his moral compass because of his affection for his fourth wife, a former pole dancer."
In the last phase of her career, she became an online poker player, the inspiration for "Bluff published in 2019, a 56-year-old socialite-turned-poker-player sets out to murder the celebrity accountant who has stolen millions from her family. It won that year’s Dashiell Hammett Prize for Literary Excellence, given by the North American branch of the International Association of Crime Writers."
Her second (?) husband, journalist Jim Hoagland, died in 2022. "Ms. Hitchcock, who had been diagnosed with cancer in 2022 — “Moby Dick,” she called her tumor, with typical moxie — ordered his-and-hers headstones. Mr. Hoagland’s inscription reads, “Historical Optimist.” Hers reads, “Hysterical Pessimist.”"
Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/hitchcockjanestanton
202featherbear
Dana A. Williams. Slate, 06/17/2025: Notes From Ms. Morrison. "What was it like to be edited by one of the great literary geniuses of her generation?"
This topic was continued by Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements, & Lists 2025-03 July-Sept.
