Book review: “Sexing the Cherry” by Jeanette Winterson.
In Sexing the Cheery, her elliptical 1989 novel — equal parts poetry and philosophy — Jeanette Winterson tells of a handful of characters in the complex setting of time and [...]
Book review: “Last Ragged Breath” by Julia Keller
The tone of Last Ragged Breath is set on the book’s first pages when Goldie, a six-year-old shepherd-retriever mix, is running joyously along the bank of Old Man’s Creek after [...]
Book review: “The Light Fantastic” by Terry Pratchett
In Terry Pratchett’s second Discworld novel The Light Fantastic, a mob of Ankh-Morpork citizens has marched through the streets to the gates of the Unseen University to demand that the [...]
Death books: A list
Let’s talk about death. Okay, I know you’ve got to get to your tennis match. Or cook dinner, or check Twitter, or wash your hair. But, really, let’s talk about [...]
Book review: “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game” by Michael Lewis
Some books are like a lot of magazine articles and newspaper stories. They are so rooted in a present moment that, in the long run, they don’t stand up. Circumstances [...]
Book Review: “Killers of the King” by Charles Spencer
On the afternoon of January 27, 1649, Charles I, King of England, was told by a court of his subjects that, for committing high treason, he would “be put to [...]
Book review: “The Long Utopia” by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
The Long Utopia doesn’t sound much like the late Terry Pratchett, but neither have any of the earlier three novels in the Long Earth series — The Long Earth, The [...]
Book review: “BODY,” edited by Anthony Bond
Given our complicated feelings about our bodies, it’s no wonder that most of the art works included in BODY, edited by Anthony Bond, are unsettling. This book — the catalogue [...]
The Burnham Plan as literature
The 1909 Plan of Chicago, written by Daniel Burnham and his co-author Edward Bennett, is a great work of American literature. There, I’ve said it. Now, let’s see if I [...]
Book review: “Searching for Robert Johnson” by Peter Guralnick
There is much that is mysterious and evocative and just plain odd about the life of blues legend Robert Johnson who died in 1938 at the age of 27, probably [...]