In Ruins book by Christopher Woodward reviewed by Andrew Kau
Peter Ibbetson
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…
Non Fiction
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…
The Golden Ratio: The Story of Phi: The World’s Most Astonishing Number book by Mario Livio reviewed by Christopher Grobe
What do a rose, a falcon’s spiral descent, and Salvador Dali’s “Sacrament of the Last Supper” have in common? As Mario Livio explains, they all share a connection to phi,…
Erasmus and the Age of Reformation book by Johan Huizinga reviewed by Susannah Rutherglen
Johan Huizinga, the great historian of late medieval culture, was one of those rare figures in the study of ideas whose own stature and sensibility easily matched those of his…
The Partly Cloudy Patriot book by Sarah Vowell reviewed by Ellen Thompson
The Partly Cloudy Patriot makes an unusual addition to the bedstands of most readers of American history. In this motley collection, 34-year-old Sarah Vowell keenly applies the lessons of popular…
Jihad: the Trail of Political Islam book by Gilles Kepel reviewed by Mahbod Moghadam
By December 29, 1999, Abdel Wahab al-Effendi had been convinced of Islamism’s failure. Why should you care? He is a senior writer for al-Quds al-Arabi (Arab Jerusalem), a major Arabic-language…
Secrets of the Tomb book by Alexandra Robbins reviewed by Emma Pollack-Pelzner
An initiation involving coffins and naked mud wrestling, thousands of dollars given to members upon graduation, and financial support of Adolf Hitler: these are some of the myths about the…
Old Gods Almost Dead: the 40-Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones book by Stephen Davis reviewed by Colleen Carey
How do you write a 560-page book about the Rolling Stones without using the word “egotist”? Stephen Davis, the author of a new chronicle of the rock legends, tries to…