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 — [...]