William Trevor is an Irish writer – “Irish in every vein” – and one of the world’s best living short story writers, worthy to be mentioned with the likes of Alice Munro. He took up writing late in life, publishing […]
Michel Houellebecq’s Submission
by on August 11, 2016
I must begin by thanking my brother Kenneth, both for recommending Submission to me and for shipping it across the Atlantic when our dismal Montreal bookstores could not furnish a copy. Michel Houellebecq was unknown to me before January of […]
Paul Berman’s Terror And Liberalism
by on August 3, 2016
Despite its meandering style, Terror And Liberalism has a very simple thesis: Islamic extremism is best understood as a fascistic political force, inspired by the great totalitarian movements of the 20th century, and much of the anti-war Left (the book […]
Victor Davis Hanson’s Mexifornia
by on July 29, 2016
If Donald Trump is elected the 45th President of the United States, one issue in particular will explain how a loud-mouthed, crass celebrity with no political experience ascended to the office once held by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln: immigration. […]
Charles Darwin’s The Voyage Of The Beagle
by on July 26, 2016
The Voyage Of The Beagle is the title posthumously given to Charles Darwin’s account of his time aboard the HMS Beagle, from 1832 to 1836. Darwin was invited by Captain FitzRoy, after a recommendation from a friend, to join the voyage […]
Bruce Bawer’s While Europe Slept
by on July 23, 2016
As I write this, France mourns the 84 victims of a terrorist attack in Nice, who died while celebrating Bastille Day, the French equivalent of the Fourth of July. Whether the attack was intended as an assault on the French national […]
Patrick Leigh Fermor’s A Time Of Gifts
by on July 17, 2016
In late December of 1933, shortly after turning 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor departed his native England by boat, heading for the Hook of Holland. Like many young men before him, his ultimate plan was to complete a walking tour of Europe, […]
Malcolm Bradbury’s Eating People Is Wrong
by on June 30, 2016
Malcolm Bradbury began work on Eating People Is Wrong in 1950, when he was an undergraduate “at a redbrick university,” but it did not appear in print until the close of the decade, when it was well received as a […]
Jane Smiley’s Moo
by on June 24, 2016
My introduction to Jane Smiley came in high school, when we were assigned her One Thousand Acres, a Pulitzer Prize-winning adaptation of King Lear set on an Iowa farm, together with Shakespeare’s tragedy. Smiley’s novel kicked my teeth in, as few novels […]
John Kenneth Galbraith’s Selected Essays
by on June 17, 2016
John Kenneth Galbraith was born in 1908 in rural Ontario, the son of farmers. By the time of his death in 2006 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he had written novels, published books on economic theory and history, accrued some 50 honorary […]
Graham Greene’s The Comedians
by on June 16, 2016
Graham Greene’s novel about François Duvalier’s Haiti begins at sea, on a boat bound for Port-au-Prince from New York. What sort of people voyage towards a dictatorship of the worst kind, where armed men enforce a nightly curfew and the laws […]
Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene
by on May 31, 2016
This year marks the 40th anniversary of Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene, and much commentary has been written about it. In the popular imagination, Dawkins is first and foremost an outspoken atheist, and so many have overlooked his contributions to […]
Mary Karr’s Lit
by on May 31, 2016
From her opening sentence, Mary Karr warns us of the perils of memory: “Any way I tell this story is a lie.” She is addressing her adolescent son, her only child, and despite some early humour, we are quickly given […]
Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland
by on May 31, 2016
It is difficult to imagine a more un-American sport than cricket, despite its obvious similarities with baseball, “America’s national pastime.” Soccer has found its North American converts, but cricket remains the sport of outsiders, rarely broadcast on television or played […]
James Fenton’s Yellow Tulips, Poems 1968-2011
by on May 24, 2016
My introduction to James Fenton came through Christopher Hitchens’ memoir Hitch-22. Hitchens and Fenton met at Oxford, where they were fast friends, and were later reunited at the New Statesman, where they were part of an editorial team that included Martin Amis […]