Book review: “Chicago Protests: A Joyful Revolution” by Vashon Jordan Jr.
Joy is being free to say: “Look at me! Listen to me!” Joy is being free to join with others to say: “Look at me! Listen to me!” Joy is [...]
Book review: “Hitler’s Northern Utopia: Building the New Order in Occupied Norway” by Despina Stratigakos
In Hitler's Northern Utopia (Princeton University Press, 313 pages, $29.95), historian Despina Stratigakos deeply mines World War II records and subsequent research to thoroughly detail for the first time the [...]
Book review: “The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century” by Joel F. Harrington
Meister Frantz Schmidt executed 394 people during the course of a nearly half century as an executioner, mostly in the important German city of Nuremburg. In addition, he tortured, flogged [...]
Book review: “Ugly Ways” by Tina McElroy Ansa
Betty Lovejoy and her younger sisters Emily and Annie Ruth, all successful black women, have come together in Mulberry, Georgia, to bury their mother, known by the family nickname as [...]
Book review: “Chicago’s Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City” by Carl Smith
Devastation is devastation, whether brought about by fire or pandemic. The Great Chicago Fire occurred nearly a century and a half ago, but the experience of living through that [...]
Poem: “He tossed his sin stone”
He tossed his sin stone By Patrick T. Reardon He tossed his sin stone into Lake Deuteronomy, set fire to his crops and headed for Egypt City. [...]
Book review: “Bathers, Bodies, Beauty: The Visceral Eye” by Linda Nochlin
“Visceral” is one of those no-nonsense words. It goes right to the gut. You can look at art, look at the world, with your intellect. But, if you turn a [...]
Book review: “The Tides of Time” by John Brunner
In its odd way, John Brunner’s 1984 novel The Tides of Time is an adventure story. It’s also a thriller and a mystery that propels the reader along in search [...]
Book review: “The Jefferson Bible: A Biography” by Peter Manseau
It takes some hubris to rewrite the Christian gospels, but maybe not that much. A lot of people have done it. The gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John seem [...]
Book review: “A Death in the Family” by James Agee
It was nearly 40 years ago that I first read James Agee’s autobiographical novel A Death in the Family. Since then, I have experienced a similarly sudden violent death [...]