Book review: “Ashenden: Or the British Agent” by W. Somerset Maugham
Ashenden, somewhat celebrated as an author, is serving as a secret British agent in Switzerland during the Great War, only later known as World War I. He is, truly, a [...]
Poem: Let be
Let be Patrick T. Reardon Let be the messenger preparing the way. Let be days of old. Let be the old style, old age, old testation, old [...]
Book review: “What Architecture Is” by Witold Rybczynski
Just about every Chicagoan, I would guess, is familiar with the monumental steel sculpture by Pablo Picasso, called simply The Picasso, in the plaza of the Richard J. Daley Center [...]
Book review: “Trash: A Garbageman’s Story” by Simon Pare-Poupart
Lorraine is a wealthy suburb of Montreal, and the livin’ there is easy, as Simon Pare-Poupart recounts in Trash: A Garbageman’s Story. Working here fills me with idyllic feelings, what [...]
Poem: Hungry one
Hungry one Patrick T. Reardon Hungry one tells me what to do. Edge brick wall to doorway. Soft up steps. Leave open escapes. Set up [...]
Book review: “Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness” by Kathryn Paige Harden
Kathryn Paige Harden’s Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness is a difficult book to read because the questions that [...]
Book review: “Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out of It” by Emily Hauser
Penelope’s Bones: A New History of Homer’s World through the Women Written Out by British classicist Emily Hauser makes some provocative points about the role of women in Homer’s two [...]
Poem: Answer songs sell well
Answer songs sell well Patrick T. Reardon From her cave, high in the Michigan Avenue cliff, Wendi plots the morning like a military campaign against many enemies, visions [...]
Book review: “Zapata and the Mexican Revolution” by John Womack Jr.
Pablo Gonzalez Garza — a general during the presidency of Venustiano Carranza at the end of a decade of rebellions, known as the Mexican Revolution — was the mastermind of [...]
Essay: Anger, Judgment and Forgiveness
The Book of Sirach, in the Hebrew Bible, was written about 2,300 years ago, but its admonitions are far from old-fashioned: “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner [...]