Book review: “The Bounty Hunters” by Elmore Leonard
Elmore Leonard’s first novel The Bounty Hunters was published in 1953, just eight years after World War II, and it was part of a movement in American arts to reevaluate [...]
Book review: “The Song of Songs: A Biography” by Ilana Pardes
The Song of Songs is one of three very odd books in the Bible. Ecclesiastes expresses a deep mournful existential angst not found anywhere else in the Jewish and Christian [...]
Essay: Tweet at me, Mr. President
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m feeling sort of left out. This past weekend, President Donald Trump tweeted about how much he dislikes singer and activist John Legend [...]
Book review: “The Periodic Table” by Primo Levi, translated by Raymond Rosenthal
Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, published in Italian in 1975, is a literary memoir of high art and broad ambition. It covers the waterfront. The periodic table, of course, is [...]
Essay: Let’s celebrate working when we’re working
On the occasion of this 126th Labor Day as a national holiday, I’d like to make a modest proposal: Let’s have a second one — Labor Day 2 — that’s [...]
Poem: “Visions”
Visions By Patrick T. Reardon I see the hand of God write on the wall the sins of the king. I see the bloody knife. I see the father lead [...]
Book review: “The Cold Way Home” by Julia Keller
Near the very end of Julia Keller’s latest Acker’s Gap novel The Cold Way Home (Minotaur, 306 pages, $27.99), Jake Oakes wants something that he knows he may never get, [...]
Book review: “Lords and Ladies” by Terry Pratchett
Granny Weatherwax hears a noise outside her witch’s cottage: There was something in the garden.It wasn’t much of a garden. There were the Herbs, and the soft fruit bushes, a [...]
Book review: “Playback” by Raymond Chandler
Two-thirds of the way through Raymond Chandler’s novel Playback, Philip Marlowe is having a conversation with Henry Clarendon IV, an aged, wealthy man who spends his days sitting in a [...]
Book review: “The Souls of Black Folks” by W. E. B. Du Bois
Published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folks by W. E. B. Du Bois is an important book of American literature, a significant work in the development of the field [...]