Book review: “Eminent Victorians” By Lytton Strachey
Twenty years ago, a friend of mine, Steve Swanson, recommended Lytton Strachey’s “Eminent Victorians” as a classic in the field of biography — and a delightful read as well. I’ve [...]
Book review: “The Life of Pi” By Yann Martel
I finished “The Life of Pi” by Yann Martel a couple days ago, and I’m still not sure how to take it. […]
Book review: “The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson” By Robert A. Caro
On the final page of “The Passage of Power,” Robert Caro sums up the 604 pages that have come before with a single word. He calls Lyndon Baines Johnson “heroic.” [...]
It Wasn’t the Fort Dearborn Massacre
What happened two centuries ago on Aug. 15, 1812, on the Lake Michigan shore near what is now 18th Street has long been called the Fort Dearborn Massacre. But [...]
Dangerous Women
Back in the 1990s, I saw a movie, set in a big city, that focused on a small group of people who wore very distinctive uniforms. This group wasn’t carrying [...]
Book review: “Outliers: The Story of Success” By Malcolm Gladwell
I found “Outliers: The Story of Success” by Malcolm Gladwell to be quick and entertaining to read — and ultimately dissatisfying. Part of it has to do with Gladwell’s glibness. [...]
Book review: “The Giant O’Brien” By Hilary Mantel
Midway through “The Giant O’Brien,” I was more than a little lost. I couldn’t quite figure out how to take Hilary Mantel’s tale of the 18th-century Irish giant Charles O’Brien [...]
Book review: “The Great War and Modern Memory” by Paul Fussell
Perhaps the best way to write about Paul Fussell’s 1975 masterpiece “The Great War and Modern Memory” would be to simply list willy-nilly some of the myriad insights, observations, facts, [...]
Book review: “Imagined Lives: Portraits of Unknown People” — Fictional character sketches by John Banville, Tracy Chevalier, Julian Fellowes, Alexander McCall Smith, Terry Pratchett, Sarah Singleton, Joanna Trollope and Minette Walters
Now, let’s take these characters and make a novel! Ooops! I’m afraid I’m jumping the gun a bit here. I should tell you first what I’m talking about — “Imagined [...]
Being a work-in-progress in the post-college world
Hello, newly minted college graduate. How are you liking real life? Scary, right? Especially for a young adult. Gone are the days when a parent could make a decision for [...]