Peter Ibbetson
Stranger Shores book by J.M. Coetzee
At sixty-one years of age, the South African novelist J.M. Coetzee has crafted several treasures of contemporary fiction, including his…
Political Fictions book by Joan Didion
Something about Joan Didion’s writing makes me almost believe every word. She’s so acridly disarming, so apparently prescient in her…
The Glass Palace book by Amitav Ghosh
Amitav Ghosh occupies a rather curious place in the landscape of contemporary English-language authors from the Indian subcontinent. At fifty-five…
Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White book by Frank H. Wu
It is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day at Yale. I am attending one of the accompanying lectures when a graduate…
Monograph: We Built This Suburb by Carey Seal
Everyone agrees that America’s cities are in trouble. The familiar complaints about “urban blight” and overcrowded slums now seem almost…
The Early Stories: 1953-1975 book by John Updike reviewed by Charlotte Dewar
Looking Backward A compendium of the early work of an American literary master In his 1986 introduction to a set…
Party of the People book by Jules Whitcover Grand Old Party book by Lewis L. Gould reviewed by David Noyola
Bipartisan Reading Incisive accounts of the Democratic and Republican parties When the tenor of politics is inflamed, partisan bickering precludes…
Profs’ Picks
What’s on the nightstand of Yale’s Professors Dudley Andrew Professor of Comparative Literature, Co-Chair & DGS of the Film Studies…
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…
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…