Patrick Reardon

Andre Norton’s 1970 novel Ice Crown is an interesting mix of the genres of science fiction and historical fiction, with hints of others. In its way, the book encapsulates Norton’s [...]

First, there’s the question of whether John Milton’s epic, 10,565-line, blank-verse poem Paradise Lost is a religious book. Which seems odd since the poem, originally published in 1667, tells the [...]

Scott O’Dell’s 1970 spare, steady and poignant novel Sing Down the Moon has a happy ending, but it tells a tragic story. In the final pages of this story — [...]

The title of Jake Johnson’s latest book — Unstaged Grief: Musicals and Mourning in Midcentury America — is more than a bit jarring. It’s that part about “Musicals and Mourning” [...]

Early on, Robert Garland, a professor emeritus of the classics at Colgate University, lets the reader know his scholarly intentions for What to Expect When You’re Dead: An Ancient Tour [...]

When Lew Archer first sees Miranda, the daughter of the missing millionaire Ralph Sampson, he has her pegged: I watched her over my salmon mayonnaise; a tall girl whose movements [...]

Elmore Leonard was a fan of human nature. He didn’t think in terms of us-and-them. We’re all us, each with flaws and moments of beauty. How else could he write [...]

The seven guys who make up the Animals had been through a lot in Christopher Moore’s earlier goofy novels set in San Francisco Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story and You [...]

Antony Maitland — an English barrister, a British spy during World War II, a thorn in the side of official police and an investigator with a knack for solving mysteries [...]

Kalypso has been told by Hermes, the messenger of Zeus, to permit Odysseus to return home after being held on her island of Ogygia — and in her bed — [...]