Three Junes book by Julia Glass reviewed by Daniel Barrett
Peter Ibbetson
Julia Glass admires Shakespeare, Pope, and George Eliot, but she says her desire to write like them is an “unrequited craving.” Right she is. Three Junes more closely resembles a…
July 2013
The Cave book by Jose Saramago reviewed by Paige Austin
In one of his most famous allegories, Plato writes in his Republic: “Imagine human beings living in an underground, cavelike dwelling… They’ve been there since childhood, fixed in the same…
Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002 book by Salman Rushdie reviewed by Michael Obernauer
It is no surprise then that Rushdie’s intellectual inquiries have so often centered around the notions of borders and boundaries; transgressions and journeys; the crossing of frontiers, and the struggle…
The Rage and the Pride book by Oriana Fallaci reviewed by James Kirchick
An exhibit at the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg is called Dvoe, or “Twosome.” It pairs paintings and sculptures to suggest dualities in Russian art: East vs. West, peasant vs.…
American Studies book by Louis Menand reviewed by Thomas Cannell
With a collection of essays, you can always tackle one piece in a hurry—say before bed or waiting for a train—without leaving a vaguely remembered thought to be picked up…
Why Orwell Matters book by Christopher Hitchens reviewed by Alex Lee
George Orwell has suffered the saddest fate for a political writer: he has been rendered uncontroversial. Animal Farm and 1984 are assigned reading for junior high school students around the…
In Ruins book by Christopher Woodward reviewed by Andrew Kau
In a lighthearted reference, Christopher Woodward begins his book with the image of Charlton Heston finding the ruins of the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes—an image prefigured…
Jazz Modernism from Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce book by Alfred Appel Jr. reviewed by Jessica Tanenbaum
Though many jazz enthusiasts would agree that classic jazz belongs to the modern art tradition, until now no author had completed a comprehensive analysis of jazz through this lens. Alfred…
So What: The Life of Miles Davis book by John Szwed reviewed by Tom Isler
They are the kind of words that give record producers ulcers and bald heads: “Hey, I don’t have my horn.” On March 29, 1954, Miles Davis uttered that phrase to…
The Great Tax Wars: From Lincoln to T.R. to Wilson: How the Income Tax Transformed America book by Steven Weismann reviewed by Susannah Camic
Albert Einstein once said that “the hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” In The Great Tax Wars, Steven Weisman attempts to prove Einstein wrong as…