After escaping a German POW camp, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov manages to return to the Red Army with one other escapee, but the mere fact of his survival is enough to cast suspicion on him, and he is sentenced to ten […]
Category » Book Reviews
True wit is Nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.
-Alexander Pope
Christopher Hitchens’ No One Left To Lie To
by on September 26, 2014
I am, and will remain, a lifelong fan of Christopher Hitchens. His wit, his charisma and his commitment to the dialectic were inspirational to me, at a time when inspiration was badly needed, and choice quotations and speeches he gave, […]
Ezra Levant’s Shakedown
by on September 24, 2014
In 2006, Canadian journalist Ezra Levant republished the controversial Danish cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad in his journal, the Western Standard. He was the only Canadian journalist to do so, and this meager stand for journalistic integrity promptly earned […]
E.M. Cioran’s A Short History Of Decay
by on September 18, 2014
How best to describe Emil Cioran? How classify him? He is a philosopher without the philosopher’s linearity of thought, an aphorist whose every sentence achieves the heightened perfection of poetry. A Short History Of Decay was his first French work, the product […]
Samuel Beckett’s Murphy
by on September 12, 2014
This was, embarrassingly, my first entry into Beckett’s novels, facilitated somewhat by my familiarity with his plays and the unique challenges their sparsity presents, and it occurred to me, by the book’s end, how greatly Beckett’s reputation as a prose writer is […]
Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals And Society
by on August 31, 2014
In 2006, a stripper named Crystal Magnum accused several players on the Duke University lacrosse team of raping her. The accused were white, male and affluent, the accuser poor, black and female, and that, apparently, was enough for 88 members of […]
James Wood’s How Fiction Works
by on August 31, 2014
In the tradition of Forster’s Aspects Of The Novel and Kundera’s The Art Of The Novel, Harvard professor and renowned literary critic James Wood has produced his own investigation into fiction’s inner workings, and though he cannot quite boast the firsthand experience of those […]
Mark Steyn’s America Alone
by on August 20, 2014
Earlier this year, Brandeis University rescinded their offer of an honorary award to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a vocal women’s rights advocate and critic of Islam, on the grounds that her presence might offend some members of their student body and […]
Hilary Mantel’s Bring Up The Bodies
by on August 18, 2014
We are now two books into Hilary Mantel’s trilogy on the life of Thomas Cromwell, with a third scheduled to arrive next year, and if neither the widespread acclaim (including two Booker prizes) nor the robust sales have led you […]
George Jonas’s Politically Incorrect
by on August 13, 2014
In Googling “Politically Incorrect” to find an image of Jonas’ book cover, I was reminded that television host and stand-up comedian Bill Maher at one time had a talk show of the same name. It was cancelled in 2002, in the […]
W.H. Auden’s Selected Poems
by on August 13, 2014
Born in the first decade of the 20th century, Wystan Hugh Auden is undoubtedly one of his generation’s greatest poets. More than that, he is very easy to love. Unlike Pound and Eliot, Stevens and Crane, Auden’s verse is approachable. […]
E.M. Cioran’s On The Heights Of Despair
by on July 31, 2014
The high price of knowledge is one of our most enduring tropes. Though many of us still operate in Freud’s shadow, where understanding is the first step on the journey away from suffering, we have not forgotten the price humanity paid […]
Wallace Stegner’s Crossing To Safety
by on July 30, 2014
Having read his autobiographical novel Crossing To Safety, I feel I have a sense of who Wallace Stegner was, but recreating the writer from his fictions, even those most transparently personal, is always a perilous undertaking. It also happens to be a […]
Susan Sontag’s Against Interpretation And Other Essays
by on July 29, 2014
Until her death in 2004, Susan Sontag was the undisputed doyenne of American letters, her writings ranging over foreign policy, film, literature, art, photography and human rights with equal felicity. Her fame began with the publication of Against Interpretation And […]
Victor Pelevin’s Omon Ra
by on July 17, 2014
Russian author Victor Pelevin’s first novel translated into English, Omon Ra, is an exuberant satire on Soviet Russia’s space exploration program. Omon Krivomazov – named by his policeman father after OMON, one of many special Soviet police forces charged with suppressing riots – […]