Book review: “The Portrait Now” by Robin Gibson
Robin Gibson’s book The Portrait Now was published in connection with an exhibition of the same name, organized by Gibson, on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London from [...]
Poem: “The bullet enters Lincoln’s skull”
He dreamed and saw her under the tree in the pink dress her mother hated. He felt a small hand in his in the darkness and wanted to escort the [...]
Book review: “Turner” by Peter Ackroyd
“Rockets and Blue Lights (Close At Hand) to Warn Steam Boats of Shoal Water”r In Turner, his short biography of Joseph Mallard William Turner, Peter Ackroyd tells of [...]
Book Review: “Creatures of a Day and Other Tales of Psychotherapy” by Irvin D. Yalom
Psychiatrist Irv Yalom is 83. I call him Irv because that’s what he asks his psychiatric patients to call him. I picture him as a sprightly firecracker of a guy, [...]
Book review: “The Language of Clothes” by Alison Lurie
Sometimes, a piece of clothing or an aspect of fashion has a very specific meaning. In her 1981 book The Language of Clothes, Alison Lurie notes that British officials, following [...]
Book review: “Lincoln and the Power of the Press: the War for Public Opinion”
For the North, the goal of the Civil War was to reunite the nation. That’s how Abraham Lincoln defined it and why the northern states rallied behind the effort. Yet, [...]
Book review: “The Canticles: A Faithful and Inclusive Rendering from the Hebrew and the Greek into Contemporary English Poetry, Intended Primarily for Communal Song and Recitation,” edited by Gabe Huck, illustrated by Linda Ekstrom
Many of the books of the Bible are like Hollywood musicals. In Fiddler on the Roof, for instance, the narrative unfolds as characters interact, and, every once in a while, [...]
Book review: “The Gay Place” by Billy Lee Brammer
On the cover of the University of Texas Press edition of Billy Lee Brammer’s 1961 novel The Gay Place is a blurb by David Halberstam: There are two classic American [...]
Book review: “ ‘The World of Poo’ by Felicity Beedle’ ” by Terry Pratchett with Bernard and Isobel Pearson
In Terry Pratchett’s 2011 Discworld novel Snuff, Young Sam Vimes has become very interested in poo. Mainly, this is because Young Sam is six. It’s also because the only son [...]
Book review: “Primitive Rebels: Studies in Archaic Forms of Social Movement in the 19th and 20th Centuries” by E. J. Hobsbawm
In Sicily in the late 19th century, the Socialists who went out into the rural areas to organize the peasants were hard-headed men. Their aims were economic, and their demands [...]