The four dozen novels cited here may not be the very best novels written about World War II. But they are the best ones I’ve read and reviewed here since January 2010. I’ve given every one of them a rating of @@@@ or @@@@@ (4 or 5 out of 5), eliminating a substantial number I […]
Continue Reading...In the 19th century, as the nations of Europe rushed to grab ever-larger expanses of territory there, Africa was known as the Dark Continent. That label is still apt, but not for the same reason. Everywhere else—Europe, Asia, the Americas—understanding of Africa and Africans is limited, and far too often wildly distorted. It’s time to […]
Continue Reading...This is for the record. You may not be the least bit interested, but I am. So, read on or not. In this post I’ll sum up what I’ve learned about the performance of this site in the past calendar year. And I must say I found a few surprises as I pondered the year […]
Continue Reading...When you read, what floats your boat? If you said “mystery and thrillers,” “history,” or “biographies and memoirs,” you’re in good company. According to the best data I can locate online, those three categories are at the top of the list of all genres in popularity among American readers. To prove the point, here from […]
Continue Reading...For many years, I’ve been reading a great deal about World War II, both fiction and nonfiction. And that reading is reflected in the reviews I’ve collected at 5 top nonfiction books about World War II and The 10 best novels about World War II, both of which include dozens of runners-up. But in the […]
Continue Reading...The virtue of history is that it affords us perspective—not just the distance that the passage of time occasions but the ability to grasp the importance of events that may have been only dimly understood at the time. What might seem of paramount importance to contemporaries may fade into obscurity as the years go by. […]
Continue Reading...If you’re a bibliophile, you may visit the website of Lit Hub or read one of its newsletters. I do. I get my fix of literary comment and criticism on a daily basis from Lit Hub. And I rushed to click through to The Ultimate Best Books of 2019 List by Emily Temple (Lit Hub, December 11, […]
Continue Reading...What follows is my best effort to list (in no particular order) the ten biggest issues Washington ignores – issues the White House and Congress should be addressing, but aren’t – and maybe never will. 1. The climate crisis Rarely do political issues rise to the level of existential crisis. This one does. As Mark […]
Continue Reading...We all know some writers make it, and some don’t. In fact, most people who are gripped with the obsession to write a book never make a dime from it, if they can even get it into print. (Even self-publishing isn’t all that easy for the technologically challenged, as it turns out.) But what’s not […]
Continue Reading...Back in the nineteenth century an Italian engineer and economist named Vilfredo Pareto advanced the hypothesis that in any circumstances, about 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This thesis is known as the Pareto Principle or the 80/20 Rule. As a rule of thumb, the theory works, but only in a […]
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