Books
421 results
Page 38
Stephen King’s ‘Joyland’
How Stephen King pushes my buttons
By creating true-to-life characters and nostalgic narratives, Stephen King makes it easy for us to suspend our disbelief about the macabre events in his novels.
Articles
4 minute read
Barbara Streisand’s comeuppance
A Streisand hit, without Streisand
Playwright Jonathan Tolins has transformed the most narcissistic book ever written into a comic masterpiece.
Articles
5 minute read
Saki's "Unrest-Cure': Lampooning Britain's upper class
The defeat of the smug and the boring
Every fan of satire knows Wilde and Wodehouse. But don't forget Saki, who introduced talking cats and child-hungry werewolves into upper-class British drawing rooms, on the theory that nothing invigorates a tea party like a ravening hyena.
Articles
6 minute read
Charles Whitecar Miskelly's "The Cape'
Whites and Indians in 17th-Century New Jersey
More than 70 years after it was handwritten by a shipbuilder and chicken farmer, a fantasy vision of New Jersey's earliest settlers has surfaced.
Articles
3 minute read
"Rocket Girl': Forgotten woman engineer
She rescued Wernher von Braun (who couldn't remember her name)
Rocket Girl turns the spotlight on a forgotten heroine of America's space program. But was she forgotten because she was a woman, or because she was an engineer?
Articles
6 minute read
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Miriam Kotzin's 'The Body's Bride'
One woman's betrothals and betrayals
In an age when formal verse is out of favor, Miriam Kotzin works mostly in traditional forms. Her meters scan; her lines most often rhyme. This collection s tautly unified around the central theme and image of the female body in all the stages and conditions of life.
Articles
5 minute read
Why was 'The Big Sort' overlooked?
The tribalizing of America
A five-year-old book offers an explanation for Americans' contemporary divisiveness that's still relevant. Yet I haven't met a single person who's heard of it, much less actually read it.
Articles
5 minute read
The lure of science fiction: an insider's view
On the shores of unexplored seas: Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Do readers turn to science fiction because they're bored? Or because it offers a vision of the future universe that only our minds can comprehend?
Articles
4 minute read
"Black Star Nairobi': Kenyan fiction and fact
Truth is stranger (and more inspiring, too)
Black Star Nairobi contrives a fictitious globetrotting adventure among three Kenyan pals fighting international terrorism. Meanwhile, in real-life Kenya, a much more astonishing and uplifting story is unfolding.
Articles
3 minute read
"Guns at Last Light': Hitler's defeat
Hitler's defeat: The ultimate human drama
Rick Atkinson's humane insight and astute eye for detail produce an absorbing retelling of an oft-told tale: the final year of World War II in Europe.
Articles
4 minute read