Book Review: Reading Lucretius in the Renaissance
/A lively new book traces the fascinating second life of Lucretius's poem "On the Nature of Things"
Read MoreBook Review: The Boy Who Drew Monsters
/After a harrowing near-death experience, a boy begins feverishly drawing monsters - but are his pictures mysteriously bringing them to life, or preventing them from coming to life?
Read MoreIn Paperback: Rhett Butler's People
/Donald McCaig's energetic retelling of Margaret Mitchell's beloved "Gone with the Wind" gets a new paperback reprint
Read MoreBook Review: The 'Penny Dreadful' Dracula
/Bram Stoker's undying classic gets a new makeover to correspond with a popular TV series
Read MoreThe Oxford Book of Letters!
/Our book today is the delightful Oxford Book of Letters from the halcyon year 1995, a beautifully-produced and jam-packed thing edited by Frank and Anita Kermode and devoted, of course, to what is now axiomatically referred to as “the lost art” of letter-writing. Axiomatically, but not, I think, melodramatically; letters were tangible things, after all, […]
Read MoreNo Poems!
/Our book today is a carefree little 1932 gem No Poems, Or, Around the World Backwards & Sideways that celebrated Algonquin Club wit and raconteur Robert Benchley. By the point in his career when Benchley was writing the kinds of friendly observational squibs that comprise this volume, he’d carved out a niche for himself doing […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Golden Princess
/The latest of S. M. Stirling's novels of the post-technology "Change" takes up the adventures of a new generation in a strange new (and yet old) world
Read MoreBook Review: Founders as Fathers
/A new book looks at the family lives of five Virginian grandees during the American Revolution era
Read MoreBook Review: To Make Men Free
/From Lincoln to Roosevelt to Eisenhower to Reagan and beyond - a new book tells the raucous and problematic history of the American Republican Party
Read MoreBook Review: Welcome to Subirdia
/In cities and suburbs all over the developed world, dozens of species of birds are making sometimes uneasy adaptations to the yards and neighborhoods and suburbs of human habitations - this is "subirdia," and a spirited new book takes readers on a tour of it
Read MoreBook Review: Italian Venice
/An engrossing new history takes readers past the modern Disney version of Venice
Read MoreBook Review: The Lagoon
/We think of Aristotle as the premiere ancient philosopher, but Armand Marie Leroi's witty, masterful new book urges us to remember that the philosopher was first and foremost a naturalist.
Read MoreBook Review: Relicts of a Beautiful Sea
/A paradox lies at the heart of Christopher Norment's eloquent new book: the sea life of Death Valley
Read MoreBook Review: Reynolds - Portraiture in Action
/He painted writers, explorers, kings, princes … and Doctor Johnson, and his portraits made him immortal. A gorgeous new book looks at the work of Joshua Reynolds
Read MoreBook Review: An Empire on the Edge
/A spry new history re-examines all the forces that converged to compel the separation between the British Empire and the American colonies
Read MoreBook-list warmups in the Penny Press!
/The long list for the National Book Award has been announced, so for one quick news cycle a few more people will be talking about books than otherwise would. The nonfiction list is a fairly disappointing assemblage of boring books: Nature’s God by Matthew Stewart (the likely winner, in my opinion), No Good Men Among […]
Read MoreMansplaining in the Penny Press!
/As I foresaw, Sarah Boxer’s ridiculous article in the July/August issue of Atlantic drew ample responses. In her article, Boxer does the full-Millions take on why so many mothers are missing from Disney movies. Naturally, her explanation in “Why Are All the Cartoon Mothers Dead?” involved a vast evil male conspiracy, and in the new […]
Read MoreBook Review: Juliet's Nurse
/The Nurse in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" takes center stage in a new historical novel by Lois Leveen
Read MoreBook Review: Hate Crimes in Cyberspace
/There's an entire Internet sub-strata that caters to cyber-attacks and "revenge porn," and a sharply-reasoned new book urges that this sub-strata be brought under the rule of law, for the good of all.
Read MoreBook Review: A Century of Sea Travel
/Before the age of commercial aviation, travelers of all sorts spent time on passenger vessels, some of which were very humble and others famously grand. New from Seaforth Publishing is a beautiful book documenting that lost era
Read More