Book Review: WWII - A Chronicle of Soldiering
/Fifty years ago, the author of "From Here to Eternity" wrote a vivid, impressionistic account of the Second World War, and that fascinating book now enjoys a new edition
Read MoreComics! If Asgard Falls …
/Our story today is a corker from 1968: “If Asgard Falls …” from Thor Annual #2, written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby (with customarily perfect inks by Vince Colletta), the kind of fine hammy high fantasy that always best suits this strangest of all the original crop of Marvel superheroes Lee & […]
Read MoreBook Review: Captive Paradise
/James Haley's new history takes up the oft-told story of the Hawaiian Islands
Read MoreComics: Bram Stoker’s Dracula!
/On 8 November we honor the birthday of Bram Stoker, the author of the immortal 1897 novel Dracula, which brought Dracula and humanity-stalking vampires to the popular imagination and lodged them there so firmly that “Dracula” and “vampire” have become easy synonyms. Dracula has of course been packaged and re-packaged a million times, adapted for […]
Read MoreBook Review: Fire and Movement
/The British Expeditionary Force in the First World War has accrued a great many legends over the last century; Peter Hart's new account aims to delete the mythology - and still preserve the heroism
Read MoreOld Curmudgeons in the Penny Press!
/There’s a certain kind of purity-of-the-turf book-article that I expect to encounter on a regular basis in the Penny Press, and yet even though I expect it, the encounters are always a bit depressing. The theme never changes: I’m an old-fashioned reader; I’ll never cozy up to these new-fangled electronic books or electronic reading gizmos, […]
Read MoreEchoes aplenty in the Penny Press!
/One of the little joys of book-reviewing is finding “echoes” of your own reviews in somebody else’s Table of Contents. My beloved Open Letters Monthly, though well-respected in the industry, is virtually unknown outside it (except perhaps for those curious browsers who find one of our blurbs on some new paperback), so it’s extra-pleasing for […]
Read MoreAbout Boston!
/Our book today is David McCord’s charming 1948 volume About Boston, a warmly affectionate look at Boston written by a Harvard graduate and long-time professional Harvard booster (and fundraiser! Good Grief, the man could get a donation-check out of a potted geranium) McCord, who was most famous in his own day as a charming poet, […]
Read MoreBook Review: Bee Time
/An enjoyable new book draws some unexpected parallels between human society and the world of bees
Read MorePenguins on Parade: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow!
/Some Penguin Classics are welcome back in new reprints as often as opportunity allows; indeed, the persistence of their reappearances gives us one of the signature comforts of a canon. These works keep getting reprinted, we’re reassured, because some works deserve to be reprinted regularly. We can certainly think of the new Penguin Classics edition […]
Read MoreBook Review: The Slow Regard of Silent Things
/The bestselling author of the "Kingkiller Chronicles" turns in a short novella devoted to one of his fan-favorite characters
Read MorePenguin on Parade: The Penguin Book of Witches!
/Some Penguin Classics are amazing original productions, which is an odd thing to say about the world’s best line of reprints. A perfect example – and a timely one, considering the Halloween/Samhain double-whammy that strikes most of the West today – is the new Penguin Book of Witches, a fantastic original anthology of key original […]
Read MoreBook Review: Eugene O'Neill - A Life in Four Acts
/A punchy and intensely readable new biography of America's greatest playwright
Read MoreTitle Menu: A list of great political books that doesn't include What It Takes by Richard Ben Cramer
/Just in time for the November midterm elections, we do what doubters said couldn't be done: we present you with a list of ten great political books that doesn't include Richard Ben Cramer's What It Takes.
Read MoreThe Book of Abraham
/Veteran historian Brookhiser takes a look at the formative influences on Abraham Lincoln - not so much his own father as the Founding Fathers.
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