Book review: “Lamentations,” translated by Robert Alter
Muslims, it seems to me, are onto something when they assert that their sacred text, the Qur’an, the Word of God given to Muhammad in Arabic and later written down [...]
Book review: “Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power” by Aaron Cohen
One of the pleasures of reading Aaron Cohen’s 2019 Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power is its walk down memory lane of the great Chicago-based soul [...]
Poem: Robot factory
Robot factory By Patrick T. Reardon . Windows broken, robot factory silent, acres of weed-written empty — I flame by on Cain & Abel Highway for Albuquerque, wanting to get where I’m [...]
Book review: “Fast Funny Women: 75 Essays of Flash Nonfiction,” edited by Gina Barreca
Some of the 75 essays of flash nonfiction in Fast Funny Women have punchlines, such as “Binging on Ozark” by cartoonist/writer Nicole Hollander. It’s a piece that has to do [...]
Book review: “Everyman” by Philip Roth
When the operation began, the man “went under feeling far from felled, anything but doomed, eager yet again to be fulfilled.” But the reader knows he will not emerge alive. [...]
Book review: “The Second Founding: How the Civil War and Reconstruction Remade the Constitution” by Eric Foner
Nearly four decades ago, historian Gary Wills explained how Abraham Lincoln used his Gettysburg Address to redefine — rededicate — the United States by enshrining the Declaration of Independence as [...]
Book review: “Venus on the Half-Shell” by Philip Jose Farmer
Philip Jose Farmer’s 1975 novel Venus on the Half-Shell was based on a gimmick, so it’s not surprising that it’s filled with gimmicks, most of which, to my mind, seem [...]
Book review: “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls before Swine” by Kurt Vonnegut
The Hebrew Bible is big on prophets and big on sin. There are four major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. And a dozen minor prophets who wrote shorter books [...]
Essay: You’re wrong, Pope Francis, about gay couples
This essay originally appeared in the Chicago Tribune on 3.15.21. Well, Pope Francis, I disagree. I respect much of what you’ve done in the papacy, Holy Father, but this statement [...]
Book review: “The Little Black Dress” by Andre Leon Talley with photographs by Adam Kuehl
I’m a stranger here myself. The Little Black Dress by Andre Leon Talley with photographs by Adam Kuehl is the elegant and lavish catalogue of an exhibition at the Savannah [...]