For several hundred years, since the advent of the Enlightenment, the idea of the perfectibility of the human project has dominated what is broadly called Western thought. Believing, somehow, against all available evidence, leading thinkers from Rousseau and Jefferson to Marx posited that the...
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Ask American college graduates to name any of the kings of England before Charles III, and if they can cite any at all they’ll probably come up with a single example. Henry VIII. Few stories in the English-speaking world are more familiar than that of Henry and his six wives. Amazon lists...
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Someone famous probably urged us never to delve too deeply into the lives of our heroes since we’re so likely to become cruelly disappointed. And you may have held a vision of Lawrence as one of the few genuine heroes of the 20th Century—a vision nourished by David Lean’s 1962 film...
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Brutal, face-to-face warfare rages across the English countryside in 1141, as the ninth of the Cadfael Chronicles mysteries opens. But the life-or-death struggle over the throne between King Stephen and the Empress Maud has reached a climax. At Lincoln, in the northeast, Maud’s forces have...
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Don’t be misled by the provocative title. The “Theory of Bastards” in Audrey Schulman’s artful near-future novel has nothing to do with offensive or disagreeable people. The protagonist is Dr. Frankie Burk, an evolutionary biologist. And she is researching patterns of...
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Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review,
with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review,
with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.
Mysteries & Thrillers Tuesday includes my latest mystery and thriller book review, with links to other science fiction content.
Nonfiction Wednesday includes my latest nonfiction book review, with links to other nonfiction content.
The Weekly includes summaries and links to all the previous week’s three to five book reviews, including some that don’t appear in any of the other newsletters.