Profs’ Picks
Peter Ibbetson
What’s on the nightstand of Yale’s Professors Dudley Andrew Professor of Comparative Literature, Co-Chair & DGS of the Film Studies Program I’m such a follower when it comes to “free…
Peter Ibbetson
Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear book by Jim Steinmeyer reviewed by Kirsti Potter
The Magic Touch An insider explains the history of stage illusions From time to time, magic and its modern practitioners still steal into the spotlight—even without counting the wily tricks…
Rules of Engagement book by Anita Brookner reviewed by Jessica Wheeler
Playing by the Rules In her twenty-second novel, Anita Brookner stays true to form In response to Anita Brookner’s third novel, critic Caryn James referred to what had at that…
Finis by Joshua Foer
“We have arrived at the Brave New World that seemed so distant in 1932, when Aldous Huxley wrote about human beings being born in what he called a `hatchery.’” So…
War Talk by Arundhati Roy, reviewed by Kanishk Tharoor
War Talk by Arundhati Roy South End Press, 152 pp, $12.00 reviewed by Kanishk Tharoor After winning the Booker Prize for her first and only novel The God of Small…
The Furies by Fernanda Ebserstadt, reviewed by Daniel Kluger
The Furies by Fernanda Ebserstadt Knopf, 464 pp, $26.00 reviewed by Daniel Kluger The Furies, Fernanda Eberstadt’s fourth, and most ambitious, novel to date, examines the complexities of motherhood, femininity,…
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey, Reviewed by Teddy Goff
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey Knopf, 288 pp, $24.00 reviewed by Teddy Goff My Life as a Fake culls its epigraph and much of its structure from…
The Holy Grail by Richard Barber, reviewed by Momo Sugawara
The Holy Grail by Richard Barber Harvard, 488 pp, $27.95 Reviewed by Momo Sugawara The literary and historical mystery of the Holy Grail has been a recurring motif in Western…
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, reviewed by Toby Merrill
Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss Gotham Books, 240 pp, $17.50 reviewed by Toby Merrill The premise of the title of Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots & Leaves is a…
Triangle by David Von Drehle, reviewed by David Carpman
Triangle by David Von Drehle Atlantic Monthly Press, 352 pp, $25.00 reviewed by David Carpman Triangle, David Von Drehle’s portrait of the buzzing metropolis that was turn of the century…