Exploring Books Through Articles, Reviews, Announcements, & Lists 2024-2 Apr.-June

NYRB Online April 4 2024 (note: NYRB posted this issue in March)

Literature

Miranda Seymour. A Hectic Life. Review of: Byron: A Life in Ten Letters / Andrew Stauffer -- Jane Austen and Lord Byron: Regency Relations / Christine Kenyon Jones.

Phillip Lopate. ‘Thus I Lived with Words.’ Review of: The Complete Personal Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson / edited by Trenton B. Olsen.

Sophie Pinkham. Becoming One with Genius. Review of: The Extinction of Irena Rey / Jennifer Croft.

Arts

Daphne Merkin. The Way She Was. Review of: My Name Is Barbra / Barbra Streisand.

James Quandt. An Anatolian Chekhov. Review of About Dry Grasses, a film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the book ReFocus: The Films of Nuri Bilge Ceylan / edited by Gönül Dönmez-Colin.

History, Politics & Society, Culture

Christian Caryl. Mourning Navalny. Review of: The Dissident: Alexey Navalny, Profile of a Political Prisoner / David M. Herszenhorn -- Navalny: Putin’s Nemesis, Russia’s Future? / Jan Matti Dollbaum, Morvan Lallouet, and Ben Noble -- Navalny, a film directed by Daniel Roher.

Jason DeParle. Sisyphus on the Street. Review of: Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O’Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People / Tracy Kidder.

Eric Foner. A ‘Wary Faith’ in the Courts. Review of: Before the Movement: The Hidden History of Black Civil Rights / Dylan C. Penningroth.

Trevor Jackson. The Crash Next Time. Review of: Seven Crashes: The Economic Crises That Shaped Globalization / Harold James -- The Great Crashes: Lessons from Global Meltdowns and How to Prevent Them / Linda Yueh.

David A. Bell. Piety & Power. Review of: La Duchesse: The Life of Marie de Vignerot, Cardinal Richelieu’s Forgotten Heiress Who Shaped the Fate of France / Bronwen McShea.

Erin Malagque. Wings of Desire. Review of: They Flew: A History of the Impossible / Carlos M.N. Eire.

Margaret Scott. Indonesia’s Corrupted Democracy. Review of: The Coalitions Presidents Make: Presidential Power and Its Limits in Democratic Indonesia / Marcus Mietzner.

NYRB Online April 18 2024 (w/odds & ends from March)

Literature

Colin Grant. The Jeopardy Is the Juice. Review of: Crook Manifesto / Colson Whitehead.

Daisy Hildyard. The Long View. Review of: In Ascension / Martin MacInnes.

Brenda Wineapple. Stifled Rage. Review of: A Strange Life: Selected Essays of Louisa May Alcott / edited and with an introduction by Liz Rosenberg, and a preface by Jane Smiley.

Andrew Delbanco. A Hell of a Performance. Review of: The Naked and the Dead and Selected Letters, 1945–1946 / Norman Mailer, edited by J. Michael Lennon.

Laura Marsh. Human Resources. Review of: Help Wanted / Adelle Waldman.

Francine Prose. Poem & Prayer. Review of: Martyr! / Kaveh Akbar.

Peter C. Baker. Staying Alive. Review of: The Wall / Marlen Haushofer, translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside, and with an afterword by Claire-Louise Bennett.

Arts

Merve Emre. As Long as You Both Shall Live. Review of the film Anatomy of a Fall, directed by Justin Trier.

Geoffrey O'Brien. Furious Stasis. Review of La Forza del Destino, an opera by Giuseppe Verdi, directed by Mariusz Treliński, at the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, February 26–March 29, 2024.

Science & Theology

Nathaniel Rich. Ufologists, Unite! Review of: American Cosmic: UFOs, Religion, Technology / D.W. Pasulka -- Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences / D.W. Pasulka.

Michelle Nijhuis. The Digital Planet. Review of: Gaia’s Web: How Digital Environmentalism Can Combat Climate Change, Restore Biodiversity, Cultivate Empathy, and Regenerate the Earth / Karen Bakker -- Environmentalism from Below: How Global People’s Movements Are Leading the Fight for Our Planet / Ashley Dawson.

Jerome Groopman. Seeing the Power in Blindness. Review of: The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight / Andrew Leland.

History, Politics & Society, Culture

Geoffrey Wheatcroft. The Unwilling Celebrity. Review of: Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair / Maurice Samuels.

Héctor Tobar. The Truths of Our American Empire. Review of: Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis / Jonathan Blitzer.

Jenny Uglow. The Volcano Lovers. Review of: Volcanic: Vesuvius in the Age of Revolutions / John Brewer.

Walter M. Shaub, Jr. The Corruption Playbook. (Essay: "Donald Trump’s plan to destroy civil service protections if reelected is more than an employees’ rights issue. What’s at stake is democracy itself.")

Tim Judah. Gloom in Ukraine. (Essay: "Two years after the Russian invasion, Ukrainian morale has plummeted.")

Elena Kostyuchenko, translated by Bela Shayevich. 04/01/2024: Russia’s Election Ritual. (Essay: "Vladimir Putin has been reelected president in another sham exercise in democracy. ")

Neve Gordon & Muna Haddad. 03/30/2024: The Road to Famine in Gaza. (Essay: "Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza are at the brink of famine—a human-made disaster with roots in Israel’s history of using food as a weapon.")

Martin Laflamme. LARB, 04/01/2024: From Aspiration to Constriction: On Three New Books Examining Change in China. Review of: Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China’s Superpower Future / Chun Han Wong -- Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy / Anne Stevenson-Yang -- The Political Thought of Xi Jinping / Olivia Cheung and Steve Tsang.

James Cooke & Paul Hastie. BBC Culture, 04/01/2024: JK Rowling in ‘arrest me’ challenge over hate crime law.

Somewhat related:

Victoria Smith. The Critic (UK), 04/2024: He’s not the messiah, he’s a transwoman. Review of: Transsexual Apostate: My Journey Back to Reality / Debbie Hayton.

Elisabeth Egan, photos & video by Chase Castor. NYT, 04/01/2024: Once Upon a Time, the World of Picture Books Came to Life. About the children's picture book museum The Rabbit Hole, located in North Kansas City, Mo. Great pictures!

William Deresiewicz. Atlantic, 04/02/2024: WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT ASKING WHERE HUMANS CAME FROM? Review of: The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins / Stefanos Geroulanos.

Benjamin Kerstein. Quillette, 04/02/2024: Sex and Smashed Steel. "A look back at J.G. Ballard's ‘Crash’—one of the the 20th century’s greatest and most disturbingly prophetic novels."

Maryse Condé, 1934-2024

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 04/02/2024: Maryse Condé, a grande dame of Caribbean literature, dies at 90.

"A literary chronicler of the Black diaspora, Dr. Condé wrote richly textured novels that were dense with detail, drawn in part from her years living in West Africa, Europe, the United States and, above all, the Caribbean. Much of her work gave voice to the people and history of Guadeloupe, an overseas department of France that she described as “a small island with no say on international issues” — the sort of place that gets “mentioned only when there is a hurricane.

"Dr. Condé, who had a doctorate in comparative literature and was a professor emerita of French at Columbia University, wrote more than two-dozen books, including plays, essay collections, children’s books and memoirs, in which she recounted her childhood in Guadeloupe (she was the youngest of eight children) and her passion for cooking, which began as an act of defiance against a mother who insisted that “only stupid people like to cook.”

Author of, among others: Segu (1984) -- I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (1986) -- Windward Heights (1995) -- Tree of Life (1992) -- The Gospel According to the New World (2023)

Her LT page at https://www.librarything.com/author/condemaryse

John Barth, 1930-2024

Michael T. Kaufman & Dwight Garner. NYT, 04/02/2024: John Barth, Writer Who Pushed Storytelling’s Limits, Dies at 93.

"Mr. Barth was a practitioner and a theoretician of postmodern literature. In 1967, he wrote a critical essay for The Atlantic Monthly, “The Literature of Exhaustion,” which continues to be cited as the manifesto of postmodernism, and which has inspired more than three decades of debate over its central contention: that old conventions of literary narrative can be, and indeed have been, “used up.”

"Mr. Barth’s creative output was prodigious: He published nearly 20 novels and collections of short stories, three books of critical essays and a final book of short observational pieces. In his teaching and in his writing, he stressed the force of narrative imagination in the face of death, or even just boredom."

I was enamored by The Sot Weed Factor in high school, & it led me to its predecessors Tristram Shandy & Moby Dick. Thanks to Giles Goat Boy I was able to take the passions of academia with a grain of salt. With gratitude, JB.

John Barth's LT page at https://www.librarything.com/author/barthjohn

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 04/02/2024: John Barth, novelist who orchestrated literary fantasies, dies at 93.

"Mr. Barth was, in fact, for many years a professor, teaching English and creative writing at his alma mater, Johns Hopkins. While he saw himself as a teacher as much as an author, he believed he was writing squarely in the tradition of storytellers such as Homer, Virgil and the imprisoned character of Scheherazade, whose storytelling prowess led her captor to spare her life.

He was, he said, a kind of literary arranger, enacting in literature what he had briefly done in his youth as an orchestrator for a jazz band."

Diane Taylor. Guardian, 04/03/2024: ‘I wanted to end my life’: ‘Bookseller of Kabul’ rebuilds destroyed business. "Shah Muhammad Rais was devastated when Taliban destroyed his shop, but now he is sending books to Afghanistan via the internet."

From Literary Review (UK), April 2024:

Richard Williams. In Their Own Sweet Way. Review of: 3 Shades of Blue: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Bill Evans and the Lost Empire of Cool / James Kaplan -- The Notebooks of Sonny Rollins / Sam V H Reese (ed).

Mark Blacklock. Apocalypse Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow. Review of: Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World / Dorian Lynskey.

James Womack. Save the Last Dance. Review of: Until August / Gabriel García Márquez (Translated from Spanish by Anne McLean).

John Keay. Selkies, Trows & Calvinists. Review of: Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney / Peter Marshall.

Deborah Levy. Lady Stardust. Review of: Me and Mr Jones: My Life with David Bowie and the Spiders from Mars / Suzi Ronson.

David James. The Critic (UK), 04/03/2024: Very public introspection. Review of: A Very Private School / Charles Spencer.

TLS April 5, 2024|No. 6314

Featured

Tom Seymour Evans. Life at the sad café: Carson McCullers: a novelist of the marginalized and ‘those struggling to understand who they are.’ Review of: CARSON MCCULLERS: A Life / Mary V. Dearborn.

Clifford Thompson. Huckleberry Jim: Mark Twain’s escaped slave wrests control of his story. Review of the novel: James / Percival Everett.

Colin Grant. Nods and winks of recognition: Percival Everett’s wry, provocative novel on the publishing world brought to the screen. Review of the film American Fiction, written & directed by Jefferson Cord, based on Erasure / Percival Everett.

Bill McKibben. The right weapon: Why the mass movement for climate action should reject violence. Review of: THE EXHAUSTED EARTH
Politics in a burning world / Ajay Singh Chaudhary.

Literature

Gerri Kimber. A talent to abuse: ‘The greatest picture of the lousiest family of all time.’ Review of: CHRISTINA STEAD’S ‘THE MAN WHO LOVED CHILDREN’ / Lucy Ferriss. Touchstone to The Man Who Loved Children.

Victoria Moul. Bridge builder: Two studies of Hart Crane. Review of: VISIONARY COMPANY: Hart Crane and modernist periodicals / Francesca Bratton -- STRONGER THAN DEATH: Hart Crane’s last year in Mexico / Francesca Bratton.

Charlie Louth. Confinements: A poet’s troubled life in pictures. Review of: PAUL CELAN: Eine Bildbiographie / Bertrand Badiou; in collaboration with Nicolas Geibel; with an essay by Michael Kardamitsis.

Miranda Gold. Liberating the truest music: Flamenco, Spain and the gypsy soul. Review of: ESCRITOS FLAMENCOS / Federico García Lorca; edited by Carlos García Simón.

Laura Garmeson. Love is all you need: Humanity and technology on their flight to infinity. Review of: THE BOOK OF ALL LOVES / Agustín Fernández Mallo; translated by Thomas Bunstead.

Michael LaPointe. Echoes of a past life: A mysterious hotel guest orchestrates a reunion. Review of: THE GENTLEMAN FROM PERU / André Aciman.

Ann Kennedy Smith. Another fresh start: A writer who makes things happen. Review of: BETTER BROKEN THAN NEW: A fragmented memoir / Lisa St Aubin de Terán.

In Brief Review of: HOW TO BE SOMEBODY ELSE / Miranda Pountney.

In Brief Review of: ZWEI SOLDATEN / Maria Lazar; edited and with an afterword by Albert C. Eibl.

In Brief Review of: JAMES SALTER: Pilot, screenwriter, novelist / Jeffrey Meyers.

In Brief Review of: GREAT JAPANESE STORIES: 10 parallel texts / Jay Rubin, editor.

In Brief Review of: RAVAGE: An astonishment of fire / MacGillivray.

Arts

James Cahill. Wonderful possibilities: The thin line between pose and authenticity in Sargent’s portraits. Review of the exhibition SARGENT AND FASHION, Tate Britain, until July 7.

Sophie Oliver. Warp and weft: An exhibition that subverts conventional notions of art. Review of the exhibition UNRAVEL: The power and politics of textiles in art, Barbican Art Gallery, London, until May 26.

Rod Mengham. Plundered planet: Aerial photographs of landscapes altered by human activity. Review of an exhibiton of photographer Edward Burtynsky, BURTYNSKY, Extraction/Abstraction, Saatchi Gallery, London, until May 6.

Walker Mimms. Generation game: A thought-provoking show of robot-created paintings. Review of the exhibition Harold Cohen: ARON, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, until May 19.

Philosophy

David Beer. Deconstructing Foucault: The final volume in a study of the philosopher’s thought. Review of: THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF FOUCAULT / Stuart Elden.

Religion

In Brief Review of: ON THE HUMAN IMAGE OF GOD / Gregory of Nyssa; translated by John Behr.

History

Irina Dumitrescu. Burnout: Stress-busting with the medieval knights. (Essay on the Life of Christina of Markyate, the twelfth-century visionary and anchoress)

Terri Apter. Pain and pedigree: On ‘culturally sanctioned trauma.’ Review of: A VERY PRIVATE SCHOOL: A memoir / Charles Spencer. (see also >12 featherbear:)

Norma Clarke. Don’t look: Unmarried motherhood and the tradition of silence in Ireland. Review of: MISSING PERSONS, OR MY GRANDMOTHER’S SECRETS / Clair Wills.

Nelly Kaprièlian-Self. The scene of the crime: An autobiographical journey back to Rwanda, thirty years after the genocide. Review of: LE CONVOI / Beata Umubyeyi Mairesse.

In Brief Review of: VITAL ORGANS: A history of the world’s most famous body parts / Suzie Edge.

Christopher Durang, 1949-2024

Alexis Soloski. NYT, 04/03/2024: Christopher Durang, Playwright Who Mixed High Art and Low Humor, Dies at 75.

Enjoyed his Idiots Karamazov at the Yale Student Theater back in the day (I think Streep was one of the players); once shared a cab ride with him from New Haven's Union Station -- neither of us said a word, much less made eye contact.

Christopher Durang's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/durangchristopher

Jesse Green. NYT, 04/03/2024: Christopher Durang, the Surrealist of Snark.

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 04/03/2024: Christopher Durang, Tony-winning playwright with acid wit, dies at 75.

Elisabeth Vincentelli. WaPo, 04/03/2024: Christopher Durang was the rare great playwright who took comedy seriously.

Scott Anderson. NYT, 04/02/2024: What’s the Quickest Path to World War III? Review of: THE RETURN OF GREAT POWERS: Russia, China, and the Next World War / Jim Sciutto -- UP IN ARMS: How Military Aid Stabilizes — and Destabilizes — Foreign Autocrats / Adam E. Casey.

Sophia Nguyen. WaPo, 04/03/2024: Small Press Distribution closes, leaving indie publishers reeling.

Becca Rothfeld. WaPo, 04/04/2024: Henry Louis Gates Jr. brings readers into his classroom. Review of: The Black Box: Writing the Race / Henry Louis Gates Jr. "Gates shares versions of lectures that he has delivered in a Harvard course for decades."

Tyler Austin Harper. The Atlantic, 04/04/2024: An Utterly Misleading Book About Rural America. Issues with White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy / Tom Schaller & Paul Waldman.

Recent reviews from LARB:

Emmeline Klein. 04/04/2024: Violent Revelations. Review of Notice / Heather Lewis. "This is a novel that puts you on edge from its first scenes. It elicited similar reactions when Lewis first sent out the manuscript: according to her friend and former mentor Allan Gurganus, it was “adjudged too dark and disturbing” by the 18 different publishers who turned it down."

Mimi Howard. 04/03/2024: For Potters, Read Wedgwood. Review of: Melancholy Wedgwood / Iris Moon. An Asian perspective on Josiah Wedgwood's contributions to the art & industry of porcelain.

Lori Marso. 04/04/2024: Frame Tale. Review of: La Captive / Christine Smallwood. (Smallwood's reading of Chantal Akerman's film adaptation of Marcel Proust's novel of the same name)

Julia Berick. 04/03/2024: Making Meaning out of Randomness. Review of: Alphabetical Diaries / Sheila Heti.

Jaspreet Singh Boparai. The Critic (UK), 04/05/2024: When classicists attack classics. Review of: How The World Made The West: A 4,000 Year History / Josephine Quinn.

Lynne Reid Banks, 1929-2024

Helen Bushby and Victoria Lindrea. BBC Culture, 04/05/2024: Lynne Reid Banks: The Indian in the Cupboard author dies aged 94.

Author of, among others, The L-Shaped Room (1961) and The Indian in the Cupboard. The former "was Reid Banks' first novel - a contemporary page-turner and a forerunner of today's popular YA (Young Adult) genre. ... Such was its popularity that within two years of publication it had been turned into a big-budget film starring Leslie Caron and directed by Whistle Down the Wind's Bryan Forbes - a film Reid Banks said it took her 20 years to forgive for its cavalier treatment of her characters."

She was one of the UK's first female television journalists on ITN, "But it was in children's literature that she made her mark, most notably with the 1980 bestseller The Indian in the Cupboard - inspired by her son Omri and a shabby bathroom cabinet."

"She went on to write more than 40 published works in all genres, including a biography of the Bronte family - The Dark Quartet - but children's works dominated and led to her travelling all over the world visiting schools."

Lynne Reid Banks LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/bankslynnereid

Addendum:

Rebecca Chace. NYT, 04/05/2024: Lynne Reid Banks, Author of ‘The Indian in the Cupboard,’ Dies at 94.

Emily Langer. WaPo, 04/08/2024: Lynne Reid Banks, author of ‘The Indian in the Cupboard,’ dies at 94.

Recently from The Washington Post:

Michael Dirda. 04/05/2024: How to shop in used-book stores: 14 tips from a bibliophile. "To own a scholarly or first edition of a favorite book is a way to honor its place in your life."

Maureen Corrigan. 04/07/2024: Lionel Shriver pokes fun at woke culture, again. Review of: Mania: a novel / Lionel Shriver.

Sarah Moorhouse. LARB, 04/07/2024: Critic or Translator? Review of: Walter Benjamin and the Idea of Natural History / Eli Friedlander. "... the task Eli Friedlander sets himself in his ambitious new study ... is to transform Benjamin’s reputation from that of a philosophizing writer to that of a capital-P Philosopher."

Elizabeth Kolbert. New Yorker, 04/01/2024: How Captain James Cook Got Away with Murder. Review of: The Wide Wide Sea: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook / Hampton Sides.

Recently from The Critic (UK):

John Sturgis. 04/07/2024: Staying in place: How history and heritage enrich our surrounding. Review of: The Giant on the Skyline / Clover Stroud. "Clover Stroud lives in rural Oxfordshire with five children, three dogs, two cats and two horses, one of which is pregnant. But she rarely lives with her husband, whose career demands mean he spends most of his time in America instead of at home with her. The strain this absentee arrangement puts on their marriage leads to the dilemma that underpins her latest volume of memoir: will she be able to pack up the life she has built for herself and her family and move to the US to be with him, or is her attachment to her home and its associations too powerful for her to embark on such a daunting change?"

James Stevens Curl. 04/07/2024: Scratches in the stonework of history. Review of: Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain / Madeleine Pelling.

Jeremy Black. 04/06/2024: Murders for April: April is the cruellest month, breeding detective fiction out of the dry land. Omnibus review of: The Venus of Salo / Ben Pastor -- The Fall / Gilly McMillan -- Impact of Evidence. A Welsh Borders Mystery / Carol Carnac -- Tokyo Express / Seicho Matsumoto (no info on translator) -- Every Trick in the Book / Bernard O’Keeffe -- Blood’s A Rover / James Ellroy -- The Cyclist / Tom (Tim?) Sullivan -- The 13th Girl / N.V. Peacock -- On the Run / Max Luther -- Second Skin / Dugald Bruce-Lockhart.

The Secret Author. 04/07/2024: Who edits the editor?: The bright young things of publishing want to be involved in every line of every new book.

I blame audiobooks:

Steven McIntosh. BBC Culture, 04/09/2024: Scrabble: Mattel launches new version of game which is 'less competitive.

Alexandra Jacobs. NYT, 04/08/2024: She Lied, Cheated and Stole. Then She Wrote a Book About It. Review of: SOCIOPATH: A Memoir / by Patric Gagne.

TLS April 12, 2024|No. 6315

Featured

Regina Rini. The ethics of belief: Eclipses and philosophy. (Essay)

Jonathan Gibbs. The salvage detectives: A group of translators go off in search of their missing author. Review of: THE EXTINCTION OF IRENA REY / Jennifer Croft.

George Berridge. Weeps and nerves: A new production of Eugene O’Neill’s tragedy of memory and regret. Review of LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, Wyndham’s Theatre, London, until June 8.

Corin Throsby. A chameleon life: Reviving Byron on the bicentenary of his death. Review of: BYRON: A life in ten letters / Andrew Stauffer -- SWIMMING WITH LORD BYRON / William Kuhn -- BYRON’S TRAVELS: Poems, letters, and journals / Fiona Stafford, editor.

Literature & Bibliography

Peter McDonald. Form and function: Metre matters in this anthology of classical lyric poetry. Review of: THE PENGUIN BOOK OF GREEK AND LATIN LYRIC VERSE / Christopher Childers, translator and editor; afterword by Glenn W. Most.

Steve Allen. ‘Thy name, oh Byron …’: The first Byron centenary celebrations. (Essay)

Kathryn Sutherland. Never the twain shall meet: How Byron and Austen shadowed each other. Review of: JANE AUSTEN AND LORD BYRON: Regency relations / Christine Kenyon Jones.

Kathryn Sutherland. ‘Gipsy yearnings’: Letters to Byron’s Cambridge friends, published for the first time. (Essay)

Tobias Warner. A debt repaid: The belated rehabilitation of a classic from Mali. Review of: BOUND TO VIOLENCE / Yambo Ouologuem; translated by Ralph Manheim.

Michael LaPointe. Enter the labyrinth: On the hunt for a long-lost masterpiece from Senegal. Review of: THE MOST SECRET MEMORY OF MEN / Mohamed Mbougar Sarr; translated by Lara Vergnaud.

Henry Hitchings. A thumbprint on the page: Putting the personalities back into the history of English publishing. Review of: THE BOOK-MAKERS: A history of the book in 18 remarkable lives / Adam Smyth.

In Brief Review of: TIME AND TIDE: The long, long life of landscape / Fiona Stafford.

In Brief Review of: GREAT SPANISH STORIES: 10 parallel texts / Margaret Jull Costa, editor.

In Brief Review of: VIVA BARTALI! / Damian Walford Davies. "... Walford Davies’s new collection of poems is journalistic by nature – but it’s largely a journalism in the myth-making, ennobling tone of Italian sports-writing."

In Brief Review of: KINDERLAND / Liliana Corobca; translated by Monica Cure.

Arts

Paul Griffiths. Two earthly powers: Music was Anthony Burgess’s first love. Review of: THE DEVIL PREFERS MOZART: On music and musicians, 1962–1993 / Anthony Burgess; edited by Paul Phillips.

Larry Wolff. Fables of freedom: Rossini’s rarely performed epic opera of liberty and independence. Review of a new production of GUILLAUME TELL, La Scala, Milan, and on LaScalaTv.

Boyd Tonkin. Greek gifts: A pagan pantheist who melted cubism or surrealism into sun and fun. Review of the exhibition JOHN CRAXTON: A modern odyssey, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, until April 23.

Edward Wilson-Lee. Motif man: The banker who became an art historian. Review of: TANGLED PATHS: A Life of Aby Warburg / Hans C. Hönes.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Stephen Lovell. Smash and grab: Hunger, confiscation and fear under Bolshevik rule. Review of: POWER AND POSSESSION IN THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION / Anne O’Donnell -- STATES OF ANXIETY: Scarcity and loss in revolutionary Russia / William G. Rosenberg.

Hew Strachan. Suicide of empires: The First World War’s other great theatre. Review of: THE EASTERN FRONT: A history of the First World War / Nick Lloyd.

William Pooley. Stone soup: How we forgot what peasants were. Review of: REMEMBERING PEASANTS: A personal history of a vanished world / Patrick Joyce.

Stanley Bill. A fragile state: Poland’s geography gives rise to existential anxiety. Review of: THE NEW POLITICS OF POLAND: A case of post-traumatic sovereignty / Jarosław Kuisz.

Nick Holdstock. Guinea to Guangzhou: A travelogue that examines the experiences of Africans in China. Review of: BLACK GHOSTS: A journey into the lives of Africans in China / Noo Saro-Wiwa.

Nat Segnit. Cave, road and mountain: What pilgrimage means today. Review of: ON THIS HOLY ISLAND: A modern pilgrimage across Britain / Oliver Smith.

Ann Kennedy Smith. Left in charge of the palace: Hankering after 1950s Venice. Review of: LOVE FROM VENICE: A golden summer on the Grand Canal / Gill Johnson.

In Brief Review of: THE HIJACKING OF AMERICAN FLIGHT 119: How D. B. Cooper inspired a skyjacking craze and the FBI’s battle to stop it / John Wigger.

In Brief Review of: NARCOTOPIA: In search of the Asian drug cartel that outwitted the CIA / Patrick Winn.

In Brief Review of: ELIZABETH WISKEMANN: Scholar, journalist, secret agent / Geoffrey Field.

Jane Eisner. WaPo, 04/11/2024: 3 thinkers trace the intellectual heritage and communal beliefs of Judaism. Review of: To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People / Noah Feldman -- The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World / Sharon Brous -- Judaism Is About Love: Recovering the Heart of Jewish Life / Shai Held.

Trina Robbins, 1938-2024

Gavin Edwards. NYT, 04/10-11/2024: Trina Robbins, Creator and Historian of Comic Books, Dies at 85. "Obsessed with comics from a young age, she was a pioneer in a male-dominated field and later documented the contributions of other women."

"In the 1960s, before she devoted her life to comics and to the women who make them, Ms. Robbins was an accomplished clothes designer and seamstress who outfitted rock stars like Donovan and David Crosby. She became a notable figure in the hippie communities of New York City and San Francisco, and in Los Angeles caught the eye of Joni Mitchell.

"The first verse of Ms. Mitchell’s song “Ladies of the Canyon,” featured on her 1970 album of the same name, is a portrait of Ms. Robbins:

Trina wears her wampum beads
She fills her drawing book with line
Sewing lace on widow’s weeds
And filigree on leaf and vine."

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 04/12/2024: Trina Robbins, cartoonist who elevated women’s stories, dies at 85. "She put out the first American comic book created entirely by women. Years later, she chronicled the history of female comics artists, writing books that excavated the stories of overlooked writers and illustrators."

Alyson Foster. HUMANITIES, Spring 2024, Volume 45, Number 2, Joseph Priestley Created Revolutionary “Maps” of Time: Then he became the most controversial man in England.

Matteo Wong. Atlantic, 04/12/2024: The AI Revolution Is Crushing Thousands of Languages.

Jay Caspian Kang. New Yorker, 04/12/2024: What Phones Are Doing to Reading.

Ayana Mathis. NYT, 04/11/2024: Does It Seem Like the End Times Are Here? These Novels Know Better. On Severance (2018) / Ling Ma -- Weather (2020) / Jenny Offill -- Salvage the Bones (2011) / Jesmyn Ward.

Recent reviews from The Washington Post:

Michael Dirda. WaPo, 04/12/2024: How did Ian Fleming create James Bond? He looked in the mirror. Review of: Ian Fleming: The Complete Man / Nicholas Shakespeare.

Chris Bohjalian. 4/13/2024: Libraries are full of books about great cats. This one is special. Review of My Beloved Monster: Masha, the Half-wild Rescue Cat Who Rescued Me / Caleb Carr. Carr is the author of The Alienist.

Helen Bushby. BBC Culture, 04/11/2024: Alexei Navalny: Russian opposition leader's memoir to be published in October.

Errol Morris. Atlantic, 04/13/2024: The Worst Day of My Life Was the Day I Learned to Read. "The celebrated filmmaker Errol Morris delivered this speech on receiving the Hitchens Prize."

Bookforum Spring 2024 is online; selected items:

Features

Christine Smallwood. Absence Makes the Heart: Constance Debré’s novels of transformation. Review of: PLAY BOY / CONSTANCE DEBRÉ, TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY HOLLY JAMES -- LOVE ME TENDER / CONSTANCE DEBRÉ, TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH BY HOLLY JAMES..

Lisa Borst. Ways of Seeing: Nicholson Baker learns to draw. Review of: FINDING A LIKENESS: HOW I GOT SOMEWHAT BETTER AT ART / NICHOLSON BAKER.

Fiction

Becca Rothfeld. The Burden of the Ordinary: E. T. A. Hoffmann’s obsessive revolt against reason. Review of: THE GOLDEN POT AND OTHER TALES OF THE UNCANNY' / E. T. A. HOFFMANN, TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN BY PETER WORTSMAN.

Hannah Gold. Czech Mate: Helen Oyeyemi’s story within a story within a story. Review of: PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE / HELEN OYEYEMI.

Non-Fiction

Zach Hatfield. Angels with Dirty Faces: How Keith Haring got his halo. Review of: RADIANT: THE LIFE AND LINE OF KEITH HARING / BRAD GOOCH.

David Klion. Oh Say AOC: Joshua Green’s chronicle of the Democratic Party’s left flank. Review of: THE REBELS: ELIZABETH WARREN, BERNIE SANDERS, ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, AND THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW AMERICAN POLITICS / JOSHUA GREEN.

Harmony Holiday. All of Her: Ways of being haunted by Billie Holiday. Review of: BITTER CROP: THE HEARTACHE AND TRIUMPH OF BILLIE HOLIDAY'S LAST YEAR / PAUL ALEXANDER.

Michael Robbins. This Is a Testament: Marilynne Robinson goes back to the beginning. Review of: READING GENESIS / MARILYNNE ROBINSON.

Peter West. Aeon, 04/15/2024: Philosophy is an art. "For Margaret Macdonald, philosophical theories are akin to stories, meant to enlarge certain aspects of human life."

Jacob Brogan. WaPo, 04/16/2024: It’s time to read Hao Jingfang’s mind-blowing novels. Considering Jumpnauts -- Vagabonds

TLS April 19, 2024|No. 6313

Featured

Andrew Hadfield. Blood will have blood: Ambiguity in Shakespeare’s theatre of war. Review of: WARTIME SHAKESPEARE: Performing narratives of conflict / Amy Lidster -- SHAKESPEARE AT WAR: A material history / Amy Lidster and Sonia Massai, editors -- THE HOLLOW CROWN: Shakespeare on how leaders rise, rule, and fall / Eliot A. Cohen.

Neguin Yavari. Street fighting woman: The real meaning of Iran’s protest movement. Review of: WHITE TORTURE: Interviews with Iranian women prisoners / Narges Mohammadi; translated by Amir Rezanezhad -- IN THE STREETS OF TEHRAN: Women. Life. Freedom. / Nila; translated by Poupeh Missaghi -- WHAT IRANIANS WANT: Women, life, freedom / Arash Azizi -- THE IRANIAN REVOLUTIONARY GUARD CORPS: Defining Iran’s military doctrine / Alma Keshavarz.

Charles Darwent. The medium is the message" A sympathetic study of the links between art and female spirituality. Review of: THE OTHER SIDE: A journey into women, art and the spirit world / Jennifer Higgie.

Michèle Roberts. What Eddy did next: A quest for freedom or social climbing? Review of: CHANGE / Édouard Louis; translated by John Lambert.

Literature & Bibliography

Jacqueline Bannerjee. The female voice: Women writers who reached a mass audience. Review of: A POPULAR ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF VICTORIAN WOMEN WRITERS / Russell James.

Freya Johnston. Great gothic page turners: The multivolume blockbusters beloved by readers, if not critics. Review of: ROMANTIC FICTION AND LITERARY EXCESS IN THE MINERVA PRESS ERA / Hannah Doherty Hudson.

Craig Raine. Sterne as influencer: Don Juan's debt to Tristram Shandy. (Essay)

Jay Rubin. Imaginary worlds: Stories by a Japanese master. Review of: THE SIREN’S LAMENT: Essential stories / Jun’ichirō Tanizaki; translated by Bryan Karetnyk.

Nina Allen. The world is too little: A surrealist landscape of love and hate, politesse and war. Review of: OVERSTAYING / Ariane Koch; translated by Damion Searls.

Kathryn Murphy. All aboard!: A playful ode to a city of proliferating stories. Review of: PARASOL AGAINST THE AXE / Helen Oyeyemi.

David Gallagher. Mad forest: A Chilean classic explores the dark forces stirred up by envy. Review of: THE OBSCENE BIRD OF THE NIGHT / José Donoso; translated by Megan McDowell -- DIARIOS CENTRALES: A season in hell, 1966–1980 /José Donoso; edited by Cecilia García-Huidobro.

Emily Barton. The nature of her game: A sexual relationship of ‘pure and bitter hatred.’ Review of: THE DEVIL’S GRIP / Lina Wolff; translated by Saskia Vogel.

Natasha Cooper. A case for change: The novelization of an award-winning play about rape. Review of: PRIMA FACIE / Suzie Miller.

In Brief Review of: LETTERS TO A BIOGRAPHER / Joyce Carol Oates; edited by Greg Johnson.

In Brief Review of: D. H. LAWRENCE AND CORNWALL: In search of utopia / Philip Payton.

In Brief Review of: 2054 / Elliot Ackerman and Admiral James Stravidis.

Arts

Bruce Boucher. ‘I am for Shakespeare’: British art and drama’s emancipation from the French Academy. Review of: SHAKESPEARE, HOGARTH AND GARRICK: Plays, painting and performance / Robin Simon.

Laurie Maguire. Making a literary shrine: A tale of two Stratford houses associated with Shakespeare. Review of: SHAKESPEARE’S HOUSE: A window onto his life and legacy / Richard Schoch.

Emma Smith. Larger than life: Two Falstaffian Shakespeare histories in one. Review of the Shakespeare production PLAYER KINGS: ‘Henry IV Parts 1 and 2’, adapted by Robert Icke, Noël Coward Theatre, London, until June 22, then touring.

In Brief Review of: ON LOCATIONS: Lessons learned from my life on set with The Sopranos and in the film industry / Mark Kamine.

Science & Technology

David Barrie. An animal is for life: Earth’s health depends on all creatures great and small. Review of: EAT, POOP, DIE: How animals make our world / Joe Roman.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

John Keay. Eyewitness to empire: A female writer with privileged access to the Mughal court. Review of: VAGABOND PRINCESS: The great adventures of Gulbadan / Ruby Lal.

Timothy Brook. Great lunatics: Fantasy and reality in western views of the East. Review of: THE LIGHT OF ASIA: A history of western fascination with the East / Christopher Harding.

Miles Taylor. Princes to pensioners: The fate of the maharajahs after independence. Review of: DETHRONED: The downfall of India’s princely states / John Zubrzycki.

Rana Mitter. Verdicts of history: The changing face of the Tokyo tribunal. Review of: JUDGEMENT AT TOKYO: World War II on trial and the making of modern Asia / Gary J. Bass.

Oonagh Devitt Tremblay. A right to a negative: Trailblazing intellectual women in eighteenth-century London. Review of: BLUESTOCKINGS: The first women’s movement / Susannah Gibson.

Kathleen Taylor. Dialled-down emotions: A former burglar and joyrider becomes a specialist in clinical psychology. Review of: SOCIOPATH: A memoir / Patric Gagne.

In Brief Review of: THE AMERICAN BEAST: Essays, 2012–2022 / Jill Lepore.

In Brief Review of: THE MEDIEVAL PIG / Dolly Jørgensen.

In Brief Review of: SPLINTERS: A memoir / Leslie Jamison.

Hannah Natanson & Anumita Kaur. WaPo, 04/16/2024: Red states threaten librarians with prison — as blue states work to protect them.

Rahul Mehta. LitHub, 04/19/2024: An Oasis in the Desert: Why Libraries Are the Best Places to Write.

Two book items from The New Yorker:

Casey Cep. 04/17/2024: Trump’s America, Seen Through the Eyes of Russell Banks. Review of: American Spirits / Russell Banks.

Louis Menand. 04/14/2024: When Preachers Were Rock Stars. Review of a reissue of Free love and heavenly sinners: The story of the great Henry Ward Beecher scandal / Robert Shaplen, & of Shaplen's contributions to The New Yorker.

Angus Brown. Engelsberg Ideas, 04/16/2024: Did the Enlightenment fail? Review of: The End of Enlightenment: Empire, Commerce, Crisis / Richard Whatmore.

Ben Goldfarb. The Atlantic, 04/18/2024: The Illogical Relationship Americans Have With Animals. Review of: Our Kindred Creatures: How Americans Came to Feel the Way They Do about Animals / Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy.

Another review of the book:

Richard Schiffman. WaPo, 04/24/2024: How our treatment of animals has changed — and hasn’t — in 150 years.

Molly Young. NYT, 04/18/2024: Quick! Someone Get This Book a Doctor: Inside the book conservation lab at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Includes pictures & video.

Jennifer Schuessler and Julia Jacobs. NYT, 04/19/2024: Books Bound in Human Skin: An Ethical Quandary at the Library. "Harvard’s recent decision to remove the binding of a notorious volume in its library has thrown fresh light on a shadowy corner of the rare book world."

Jeremy Black. The Critic (UK), 04/19/2024: Weak, flawed, limited; an opportunity missed. As noted in the review, Penguin & the author of the book under review declined to provide a copy for review, so the (negative) review does not cite the title or the full name of the author. This appears to be the title referred to: Empireworld: How British Imperialism Shaped the Globe / Sathnam Sanghera.

Daniel C. Dennett, 1924-2024

Jonathan Kandell. NYT, 04/19/2024: Daniel C. Dennett, Widely Read and Fiercely Debated Philosopher, Dies at 82.

"According to Mr. Dennett, the human mind is no more than a brain operating as a series of algorithmic functions, akin to a computer. To believe otherwise is “profoundly naïve and anti-scientific,” he told The Times.

"For Mr. Dennett, random chance played a greater role in decision-making than did motives, passions, reasoning, character or values. Free will is a fantasy, but a necessary one to gain people’s acceptance of rules that govern society, he said."

Brian Murphy. WaPo, 04/20/2024: Daniel Dennett, atheist philosopher guided by science, dies at 82.

Wikipedia: Daniel Dennett, has this opening quote:

"Daniel Clement Dennett III (March 28, 1942 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher, writer, and cognitive scientist whose research centers on the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science."

I have a number of his books in my collection, including: Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1981) -- Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (1984) -- Consciousness Explained (1991) -- Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (1996) -- Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (2006)

For fuller bibliography, see his LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/dennettdanielc-1

NYRB Online May 9 2024

Mostly arts in this issue:

Arts

Julian Bell. The Must-Also-Haves. Review of: Nicole Eisenman: What Happened / edited by Monika Bayer-Wermuth and Mark Godfrey for the Eisenman exhibitions at the Museum Brandhorst, Munich, March 24–September 10, 2023; the Whitechapel Gallery, London, October 11, 2023–January 14, 2024; and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, April 6–September 22, 2024.

Ingrid D. Rowland. Nature’s Rival. Review of: Canova: Sketching in Clay / C.D. Dickerson III and Emerson Bowyer, with contributions by Anthony Sigel and Elyse Nelson, catalog of the exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., June 11–October 9, 2023, and the Art Institute of Chicago, November 19, 2023–March 18, 2024.

Darryl Pinckney. ‘Who Shall Describe Beauty?’ Review of: The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism / edited by Denise Murrell, catalog of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, February 25–July 28, 2024.

Marina Harss. The Passion of Martha Graham. Review of: Errand into the Maze: The Life and Works of Martha Graham / Deborah Jowitt.

Jarrett Earnest. Tom’s Men. Review of: Tom of Finland: Bold Journey / edited by Leevi Haapala, João Laia, and Jari-Pekka Vanhala; catalog of the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, Helsinki, April 28–October 29, 2023 -- Tom of Finland: The Official Life and Work of a Gay Hero / F. Valentine Hooven III -- Tom of Finland: Made in Germany / edited by Juerg Judin and Pay Matthis Karstens -- Tom of Finland: Threesome / edited by Stuart Krimko; catalog of 3 exhibitions at he David Kordansky Gallery, 2015–2021.

Susan Tallman. How American Eyes Got Modern. Review of: Trailblazing Women Printmakers: Virginia Lee Burton Demetrios and the Folly Cove Designers / Elena M. Sarni -- A Model Workshop: Margaret Lowengrund and The Contemporaries / edited by Lauren Rosenblum and Christina Weyl; catalog of the exhibition at the Print Center New York, September 21–December 23, 2023 -- Art for the Millions: American Culture and Politics in the 1930s / Allison Rudnick, with contributions by Kirsten Pai Buick, Max Fraser, and Rachel Mustalish, catalog of the exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, September 7–December 10, 2023 -- The Women of Atelier 17: Modernist Printmaking in Midcentury New York / Christina Weyl.

James Fenton. Catching the Moment. Review of: Fashioned by Sargent / Erica E. Hirshler, with Caroline Corbeau-Parsons, James Finch, and Pamela A. Parmal; catalog of the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, October 8, 2023–January 15, 2024, and Tate Britain, London, February 22–July 7, 2024.

Literature

Anahid Nersessian. Wanting for Nothing. Review of: Play Boy / Constance Debré, translated from the French by Holly James.

Ariel Dorfman. Clamoring for Life. Review of: Until August / Gabriel García Márquez, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean and edited by Cristóbal Pera.

Science & Technology

John Washington. Burning Up. Review of: Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World / John Vaillant -- The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet / Jeff Goodell.

Politics, Society, & Culture

David Shulman. Israel: The Way Out. (Essay)

Susie Linfield. What’s in a Face? Review of: What Does a Jew Look Like? / Keith Kahn-Harris and Robert Stothard, with a foreword by Stephen Bush -- צלם משוטט = Wandering Photographer / by David Serry.

Richard Slotkin, interviewer Kathleen Belew. Public Books, 04/19/2024: “A THEORY OF AMERICA”: MYTHMAKING WITH RICHARD SLOTKIN. Concerning his new book A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America.

Two literature articles from The New Yorker:

Maggie Doherty. 04/15/2024: The Poet Who Took It Personally. On the occasion of The Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz edited by Ben Mazer.

Jennifer Wilson. 04/15/2024: How Stories About Human-Robot Relationships Push Our Buttons. Review of: Annie Bot / Sierra Greer -- Loneliness & Company / Charlee Dyroff but also: Out There / Kate Folk.

Marian Bull. The Atlantic, 04/19/2024: Eight Cookbooks Worth Reading Cover to Cover.

The list: The Taste of Country Cooking: The 30th Anniversary Edition of a Great Southern Classic Cookbook / Edna Lewis -- The Zuni Cafe Cookbook / Judy Rodgers -- Vibration Cooking / Vertamae Smart-Grosvenor -- Home Cooking: a writer in the kitchen / Laurie Colwin -- An Everlasting Meal / Tamar Adler -- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat / Samin Nosrat -- My Bombay Kitchen / Niloufer Ichaporia King -- Cook as You Are / Ruby Tandoh.

See also: New Yorker, 04/22/2024: OUR ESSENTIAL COOKBOOKS: The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book / Alice B. Toklas -- Beyond the North Wind: Russia in Recipes and Lore / Darra Goldstein -- Grist: A Practical Guide to Cooking Grains, Beans, Seeds, and Legumes / Abra Berens -- The Woks of Life: Recipes to Know and Love from a Chinese American Family / Bill Leung, Judy Leung, Sarah Leung, and Kaitlin Leung -- Honey from a Weed / Patience Gray -- Brooks Headley’s Fancy Desserts: The Recipes of Del Posto’s James Beard Award-Winning Pastry Chef / Brooks Headley --A Tuscan in the Kitchen: Recipes and Tales from My Home / Pino Luongo -- The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition / Hannah Che -- Mezcla: Recipes to Excite / Ixta Belfrage -- The Secret of Cooking: Recipes for an Easier Life in the Kitchen / Bee Wilson -- How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food / Mark Bittman -- How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking / Nigella Lawson -- My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora / Yewande Komolafe --Food52 Genius Recipes: 100 Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook / Kristen Miglore -- East: 120 Vegan and Vegetarian Recipes from Bangalore to Beijing / Meera Sodha.

Also from its food issue:

Adam Gopnik. New Yorker, 04/25/2024: Mastering the Art of Making a Cookbook. "Working with Julia Child and a host of author-chefs, the editor Judith Jones transformed American kitchens."

Ella Nixon. The Critic (UK), 04/22/2024: A Freudian slip: Was Golden Age Vienna the birthplace of the modern mind? Review of: Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind / Frank Tallis.

Yan Lianke. Paris Review, 04/19/2024: On the Distinctiveness of Writing in China.

Dwight Garner. NYT, 04/22/2024: A Culture Warrior Takes a Late Swing. Review of: NEVER SAY YOU’VE HAD A LUCKY LIFE: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life / Joseph Epstein -- FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT: New and Selected Essays / Joseph Epstein.

Michael Dirda. WaPo, 05/09/2024: Joseph Epstein, conservative provocateur, tells his life story in full. Review of the books listed above.

TLS April 26, 2024|No. 6317

Featured

Seth Perry. Shifting plates
The foundation text and history of the Mormons. Review of: JOSEPH SMITH’S GOLD PLATES: A cultural history / Richard Lyman Bushman -- THE ANNOTATED BOOK OF MORMON / Grant Hardy, editor -- AMERICAN ZION: A new history of Mormonism / Benjamin E. Park.

Barbara J. King. Talk like you: A debate about the sophistication of animal communication. Review of: WHY ANIMALS TALK: The new science of animal communication / Arik Kershenbaum.

Christian Lorentzen. By the left march: The revival of economic populism in the Democratic Party. Review of: THE REBELS: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the struggle for a new American politics / Joshua Green.

Sana Goyal. Brutal kinds of beauty: A Native American family from 1864 to the present day. Review of: WANDERING STARS / Tommy Orange.

Literature

Kit Fan. The saint of poetry: On the trail of ‘China’s Shakespeare.’ Review of: IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DU FU / Michael Wood.

Frances Wood. The lonely window: The first two volumes of a new library of classical Chinese literature. Review of: AN ANTHOLOGY OF POETRY BY BUDDHIST NUNS OF LATE IMPERIAL CHINA / translated by Beata Grant -- DAOIST MASTER CHANGCHUN’S JOURNEY TO THE WEST: To the court of Chinggis Qan and back / Li Zhichang; translated by Ruth W. Dunnell, Stephen H. West and Shao-yun Yang.

Susie Mesure. Staged reckoning: A daughter pricks her father’s conscience in dramatic style. Review of: THE HYPOCRITE / Jo Hamya.

Mia Levitin. Deaf sentence: A composer facing hearing loss turns to self and art. Review of: THE HEARING TEST / Eliza Barry Callahan.

Alex Clark. This identity swizz: A clash between the politics of class, race and family. Review of: THE SPOILED HEART / Sunjeev Sahota.

Astrid Edwards. Shelter from the storm: Choosing between the convent and a life in the world. Review of: STONE YARD DEVOTIONAL / Charlotte Wood.

Vanessa Curtis. Splendid isolation: Three women writers who swapped London for a calmer life in the country. Review of: RURAL HOURS: The country lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Rosamond Lehmann / Harriet Baker.

Ian Sansom. Heated debates: And other ways to change your mind. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: RAUCH UND SCHALL / Charles Lewinsky. ("A pedantic, overbearing Goethe chats with his brother-in-law")

In Brief Review of: THESE LETTERS END IN TEARS / Musih Tedji Xaviere. ("A portrait of homosexuality in Cameroon")

In Brief Review of: TOPOGRAPHIA HIBERNICA / Blindboy Boatclub. (Short stories)

Arts

James Hall. The female haze: The beautiful – and sublime – art of Angelica Kauffman. Review of: ANGELICA KAUFFMAN / Bettina Baumgärtel and Annette Wickham, catalog of the exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, until June 30.

Kathryn Hughes. Artists and angels: Two photographers who caught feelings beyond language. Review of the exhibition PORTRAITS TO DREAM IN: Francesca Woodman and Julia Margaret Cameron, National Portrait Gallery, London, until June 16.

Religion

Natasha Heller. Heavenly teacher or mortal?: The West is attracted by the image of a very human Buddha. Review of: THE BUDDHA: Life and afterlife between East and West / Philip C. Almond -- THE BUDDHA: A storied life / Vanessa R. Sasson and Kristin Scheible, editors.

Science & Technology

P.D. Smith. Another lake bites the dust: What a common substance reveals about the modern world. Review of: DUST: The modern world in a trillion particles / Jay Owens.

In Brief Review of: PATHLESS FOREST: The quest to save the world’s largest flowers / Chris Thorogood.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Jay L. Garfield. Just be yourself: Is personal identity merely a social construct? Review of: SELFLESS: The social creation of “you” / Brian Lowery.

Edward Chancellor. Growing pains: Can humanity raise global living standards without burning fossil fuels?. Review of: GROWTH: A reckoning / Daniel Susskind.

James Robbins. Allies of a kind: The US vs Saddam: twenty-five years of mendacity and backstabbing. Review of: THE ACHILLES TRAP: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the Middle East, 1979–2003 / Steve Coll.

Franklin Nelson. Flower power: The bloodless end of the Salazar regime, fifty years on. Review of: THE CARNATION REVOLUTION: The day Portugal’s dictatorship fell / Alex Fernandes -- THE PORTUGUESE REVOLUTION OF 1974–1975: An unexpected path to democracy / Maria Inácia Rezola -- CARNATION REVOLUTION: Volume 1: The road to the coup that changed Portugal, 1974 -- Volume 2: Coup in Portugal, April 1974 / José Augusto Matos and Zelia Oliveira.

Alice Albinia. A visit from Mr Milton: A personal, cultural and historical record of West Sussex. Review of: THE RISING DOWN: Lives in a Sussex landscape / Alexandra Harris.

In Brief Review of: CAST CATCH RELEASE: One woman’s search for peace and purpose by the water / Marina Gibson. ("A celebration of recreational fishing")

In Brief Review of: ALONE WITH OTHERS: An essay on tact in five modernist encounters / Katja Haustein.

In Brief Review of: MOLLY / Blake Butler. ("Blake Butler, a novelist, married Molly Brodak, a poet and memoirist, in 2017. Brodak took her own life in March 2020; shortly afterwards Butler stumbled across evidence – in the form of extensive digital correspondence – that she had been serially unfaithful to him.")

Helen Vendler, 1933-2024

William Grimes. NYT, 04/24/2024: Helen Vendler, ‘Colossus’ of Poetry Criticism, Dies at 90.

"In 2004, the National Endowment for the Humanities named her a Jefferson Lecturer, the highest honor the federal government bestows on a scholar of the humanities. According to her wishes, she was to be buried on “Harvard Hill” in Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, Mass.

"In her interview with The Paris Review, Ms. Vendler compressed her critical method into seven words: “I write to explain things to myself.”

I have 3 of her books in my collection, The Art of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- Dickinson: selected poems and commentaries -- The Odes of John Keats.
Her LT page is at https://www.librarything.com/author/vendlerhelen

Brian Murphy. WaPo, 04/24/2024: Helen Vendler, poetry critic both revered and feared, dies at 90. Repeats a bit from the NYT obit.

A.O. Scott. NYT, 04/25/2024: Helen Vendler Believed Poetry Matters: She devoted her life to showing us how and why. "“To know that someone out there is writing down your century, your generation, your language, your life,” she wrote in The New York Times Book Review in 1972, “makes you long for news of yourself, for those authentic tidings of invisible things, as Wordsworth called them, that only come in the interpretation of life voiced by poetry.” This was by way of saluting James Merrill as “one of our indispensable poets,” but Vendler was also making a case for the indispensability of poetry itself, in the most direct and personal terms. Poetry matters insofar as it matters to you."

Roger Rosenblatt. NYT, 04/30/2024: My Late-in-Life Friendship With Helen Vendler.

Adam Kirsch. The Atlantic, 05/01/2024: When Poetry Could Define a Life. "The close passing of the poetry critics Marjorie Perloff and Helen Vendler is a moment to recognize the end of an era."

Nathan Heller. New Yorker, 04/30/2024: Helen Vendler’s Generous Mind. "The professor and critic will be remembered for her brilliant books, but teaching brought her genius to the fore."

Cinque Henderson. LARB, 05/29/2024: The Commonsense Critic: A Personal Tribute to Helen Vendler.

Recent book recommendations from fivebooks.com:

Tom Chatfield, interviewer Cal Flynn. 04/24/2024: Wise Animals: How Technology Has Made Us What We Are. His recommendations & comments are on: The Fourth Revolution: How the Infosphere is Reshaping Human Reality / Luciano Floridi -- The Philosophical Baby: What Children's Minds Tell Us About Truth, Love, and the Meaning of Life / Alison Gopnik -- Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control / Stuart Russell -- Privacy is Power: Why and How You Should Take Back Control of Your Data / Carissa Veliz -- Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time / Gaia Vince.

Timo Schaefer, interviewer Benedict King. 04/18/2024: The best books on Mexican history.

Schaefer is the author of Liberalism as Utopia: The Rise and Fall of Legal Rule in Post-Colonial Mexico. He recommends & comments on: Malintzin's Choices: An Indian Woman in the Conquest of Mexico / Camilla Townsend -- Los pasos de lopez aka Los Conspiradores / Jorge Ibargüengoitia (no English translation, it appears) -- The Life and Times of Pancho Villa / Friedrich Katz -- Translated Woman: Crossing the Border with Esperanza's Story / Ruth Behar -- The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade / Benjamin T. Smith.

Also, from 2023, in memory of Daniel Dennett:

Daniel Dennett, interviewer Nigel Warburton. 09/25/2023: Favorite Books recommended by Daniel Dennett on the occasion of the publication of his book I've Been Thinking, he talks about: Word and Object / Willard Van Orman Quine -- The Selfish Gene / Richard Jenkins -- I Am a Strange Loop / Douglas R. Hofstadter -- Beyond Concepts: Unicepts, Language, and Natural Information / Ruth Garrett Millikan -- From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life / David Haig (Dennett wrote the foreword btw)

Books of the moment:

Tatum Hunter. WaPo, 04/24/2024: ‘The Age of Magical Overthinking’ tries to pinpoint our mental health crisis. Review of: The Age of Magical Overthinking / Amanda Montell.

Joshua Ferris. NYT, 04/21/2024: How Did Fan Culture Take Over? And Why Is It So Scary? "Justin Taylor’s novel “Reboot” examines the convergence of entertainment, online arcana and conspiracy theory."

Michael Dirda. WaPo, 04/25/2024: Stop trying to make language ‘funner.’ Grammar rules exist for a reason. Review of: Says Who?: A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares About Words / Anne Curzan.

Henry Oliver. The Common Reader, 04/01/2024: How Penelope Fitzgerald became a late blooming novelist. A chapter from Oliver's Second Act: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life, scheduled for publication May 2024.

Andrea Valentine. Critic (UK), 04/25/2024: Regency romance. Review of: Love and Marriage in the Age of Jane Austen / Rory Muir.

Elle Griffin. The Elysian, 04/22/2024: No one buys books: Everything we learned about the publishing industry from Penguin vs. DOJ.

Mark Fisher. Aeon, 04/26/2024: What would Thucydides say? "In constantly reaching for past parallels to explain our peculiar times we miss the real lessons of the master historian."

Ronald Radosh. Quillette, 04/25/2024: Misadventures of a Stalinist Stooge. Review of: The World That Wasn't: Henry Wallace and the Fate of the American Century / Benn Steil.

My alma mater is much in the news these days, with a certain PTSD from my freshman year 1967-68. Campus turmoil interrupted my experience of the key introductory survey course Contemporary Civilization (CC), the subject of this opinion piece.

Ross Douthat. NYT, 04/27/2024: What Students Read Before They Protest.

Gal Beckerman. The Atlantic, 04/26/2024: A Prominent Free-Speech Group Is Fighting for Its Life. "PEN America has now canceled its annual World Voices festival, after calling off its literary-awards ceremony last week. Can it survive?"

Sophia Nguyen. WaPo, 04/26/2024: PEN America cancels literary festival, citing pressure on writers. "The World Voices Festival is the second event that the free-speech nonprofit has recently struck from its calendar, following criticism of its response to the war in Gaza."

George Packer. Atlantic, 05/03/2024: When Writers Silence Writers: PEN America and the authoritarian spirit.

Alexandra Moe. Atlantic, 04/26/2024: We’re All Reading Wrong. "To access the full benefits of literature, you have to share it out loud."

Possible caveat:

Ron Charles. WaPo, 04/23/2024: With ‘Only the Brave,’ Danielle Steel confronts the Holocaust.

Science fiction author Cordwainer Smith's day job:

Annalee Newitz. Atlantic, 04/28/2024: THE SCI-FI WRITER WHO INVENTED CONSPIRACY THEORY.

C.J. Sansom, 1952-2024

Lucy Knight. Guardian, 04/29/2024: CJ Sansom, author of the Shardlake novels, dies aged 71.

His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/sansomcj

Trip Gabriel. NYT, 05/03/2024: C.J. Sansom, Mystery Novelist Drawn to Tudor England, Dies at 71.

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 04/30/2024: C.J. Sansom, best-selling author of historical mysteries, dies at 71.

Ed Simon. LARB, 04/26/2024: Toward a Genealogy of Fossil Capitalism. Review of: The States of the Earth: An Ecological and Racial History of Secularization / Mohamed Amer Meziane.

Misha Waldman. Same Difference, 04/25/2024: Could I Make You Eat S**t?: Derek Parfit's Great Discovery and the Triumph of Repugnance.

Parfit's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/parfitderek

Paul Auster, 1947-2024

Alex Williams. NYT, 04/30/2024: Paul Auster, the Patron Saint of Literary Brooklyn, Dies at 77. "With critically lauded works like “The New York Trilogy,” the charismatic author drew inspiration from his adopted borough and won worldwide acclaim."

Lucy Sante. NYT, 04/30/2024; updated 05/01/2024: Paul Auster’s New York Tragedy.

His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/austerpaul

Jonny Diamond. LitHub, 05/01/2024: Paul Auster has died at age 77.

Wilson Wong. NYT, 05/01/2024: Paul Auster’s Best Books: A Guide. "The novelist played with reality and chance in tales of solitary narrators and mutable identities. Here’s an overview of his work."

Guardian. 05/01/2024: Paul Auster – a life in pictures.

Brian Murphy. WaPo, 05/01/2024: Paul Auster, author who explored New York and life’s riddles, dies at 77. "Over more than 30 books, Mr. Auster often used New York as a backdrop for stories of characters struggling to make sense of life’s random chaos."

Jonathan Lethem. Guardian, 05/06/2024: ‘I remember Paul Auster’: a tribute by Jonathan Lethem to his friend.

Lisa Allardice. Guardian, 05/01/2024: Brooklyn’s bard: Paul Auster’s tricksy fiction captivated a generation.

Ian McEwan et al. Guardian, 05/01/2024: ‘A literary voice for the ages’: Paul Auster remembered by Ian McEwan, Joyce Carol Oates and more.

Paul Auster. Guardian, 05/01/2024: ‘Getting a book idea feels like a buzz in the head’: Paul Auster – a life in quotes.

Michael O'Donnell. The Millions, 05/08/2024: Paul Auster’s Voice. The experience of hearing Auster narrating his 4321 audiobook.

LitHub, 05/28/2024: Remembering Paul Auster, 1947-2024.

Makes me tired just listing this stuff.

Erik Baker. New Yorker, 05/01/2024: Work Sucks. What Could Salvage It? "New books examine the place of work in our lives—and how people throughout history have tried to change it." Review of: Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers Can Take It Back / Elizabeth Anderson -- One Day I'll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America / Benjamin C. Waterhouse -- Free Time: The History of an Elusive Ideal / Gary S. Cross. And, in passing: Do What You Love: And Other Lies About Success and Happiness / Miya Tokumitsu (2015) -- No More Work: Why Full Employment Is a Bad Idea / James Livingston (2016) -- Bullshit Jobs: A Theory / David Graeber (2018) (co-author of The Dawn of Everything w/David Wengrow.

Ryan Carroll. Public Books, 04/30/2024: A TRANSLATION THE SIZE OF THE WORLD. With reference to: The Books of Jacob / Olga Tokarczuk -- The Extinction of Irena Rey / Jennifer Croft.

Walpurgisnacht in literature:

Ed Simon. The Millions, 04/30/2024: Hymn for Walpurgisnacht.

TLS May 3, 2024|No. 6318

Featured

Peter Kemp. Life instinct: Salman Rushdie’s brave, horrifying memoir. Review of: KNIFE: Meditations after an attempted murder / Salman Rushdie.

A.E. Stallings. Scholarship in the wild: Anne Carson’s experiments in poetry and prose. Review of: ANNE CARSON: The glass essayist / Elizabeth Sarah Coles -- WRONG NORMA / Anne Carson.

Henry Hitchings. Making Babel work: On New York as an ‘improbable refuge’ for endangered languages. Review of: LANGUAGE CITY: The fight to preserve endangered mother tongues / Ross Perlin.

Misha Glenny. King and country for sale: How the super-rich buy their way into the British establishment. Review of: CUCKOOLAND: Where the rich own the truth / Tom Burgis.

Literature & Bibliography

Irina Dumitrescu. Epigrams and epitaphs: Ways in which we are remembered. (Essay)

Dennis Duncan. Unchained literature: The Renaissance printer who made reading a pastime. Review of: ALDUS MANUTIUS: The invention of the publisher / Oren Margolis.

Robert Alter. The jewels of the endtime: Yehuda Amichai at 100. (Essay)

David Collard. You are the product: In a reissued 1960s ‘masterpiece’, a man assumes a new identity. Review of: MORTAL LEAP / MacDonald Harris.

George Cochrane. There will be blood: An English western in the time of foot-and-mouth. Review of: THE BORROWED HILLS / Scott Preston.

Philip Womack. Dukes of hazard: A reimagining of Shakespeare’s Henriad, via Brideshead. Review of: HENRY HENRY / Allen Bratton.

Harriet Baker. Scholar and seducer: A student is distracted from Shakespeare’s sonnets. Review of: PRACTICE / Rosalind Brown.

Harry Cochrane. Travelling light: Two collections inspired by translation and photography. Review of: VENTRILOQUISE / Ned Denny -- UNSHUTTERED / Patricia Smith.

In Brief Review of: A CHANCE MEETING: American encounters / Rachel Cohen (NYRB Classics).

In Brief Review of: THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF OLD NORSE-ICELANDIC LITERATURE / Heather O’Donoghue and Eleanor Parker, editors.

In Brief Review of: ALL BEFORE ME: A search for belonging in Wordsworth’s Lake District / Esther Rutter.

In Brief Review of: ONE GIRL BEGAN / Kate Murray Browne.

Arts

Emma Smith. Stage management: Performance in the street, the agora and the theatre. Review of: THE PERFORMER: Art, life, politics / Richard Sennett.

Daniel Wakelin. From studio to battlefield: Competing and complementary ideas of the fifteenth century on display in Paris. Review of the exhibitions L’INVENTION DE LA RENAISSANCE: L’humaniste, le prince et l’artiste, Bibliothèque nationale de France, until June 16 -- LES ARTS EN FRANCE SOUS CHARLES VII (1422–1461), Musée de Cluny, until June 16.

Maria Margaronis. ‘I’ll not submit’: Sophie Treadwell’s ‘gruelling and magnificent’ classic revived. Review of Sophie Treadwell's play MACHINAL, Old Vic, London, until June 1.

Medicine & Psychology

Veronica O'Keane. Down memory lane: Humans forget in order to prioritize information. Review of: WHY WE REMEMBER: The science of memory and how it shapes us / Charan Ranganath (subtitles vary).

Josh Raymond. Doors of experience: Can psychedelics and meditation solve our problems? Review of: PSYCHEDELIC EXPERIENCE: Revealing the mind / Aidan Lyon.

History, Politics & Society

James Uden. Never only Greeks: The nineteenth-century paradigm of the West is outmoded. Review of: HOW THE WORLD MADE THE WEST: A 4,000-year history / Josephine Quinn.

Eric Cline. The lifeblood of Mycenae: What new translations of Linear B reveal about a civilization. Review of: THE NEW DOCUMENTS IN MYCENAEAN GREEK / John Killen, editor.

Lawrence Freedman. Keeping Russia out: A history of the enduring western military alliance. Review of: DETERRING ARMAGEDDON: A biography of Nato / Peter Apps -- NATO: From Cold War to Ukraine, a history of the world’s most powerful alliance / Sten Rynning.

Henrietta Wilson. Apocalypse soon: Why we are only ever an hour away from nuclear armageddon. Review of: NUCLEAR WAR: A scenario / Annie Jacobsen -- COUNTDOWN: The blinding future of nuclear weapons / Sarah Scoles.

In Brief Review of: AMERICAN IMPERIALIST: Cruelty and consequence in the scramble for Africa / Arwen P. Mohun.

In Brief Review of: PROPERTY: The myth that built the world / Rowan Moore.

In Brief Review of: PERFIDIOUS ALBION: Britain and the Spanish Civil War / Paul Preston.

Brian Raftery. NYT, 05/01/2024: His Book Was Repeatedly Banned. Fighting For It Shaped His Life. "The Chocolate War, published 50 years ago, became one of the country’s most challenged books. Its author, Robert Cormier, spent years fighting attempts to ban it — like many authors today."

Francesca Mancino. Atlantic, 05/02/2024: THE COMPLICATED ETHICS OF RARE-BOOK COLLECTING. "Literary treasures are too often hidden away from the public—but the world of private collecting isn’t all bad."

Rachel Donadio. NYT, 05/01/2024: Rare Editions of Pushkin Are Vanishing From Libraries Around Europe. "Dozens of books have disappeared from Warsaw to Paris. The police are looking into who is taking them, and why — a tale of money, geopolitics, crafty forgers and lackluster library security."

Oliver Kamm. Quillette, 05/01/2024: The Paranoid Style in Shakespeare Denialism. Regarding Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies: How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature / Elizabeth Winkler.

Nick Romeo. Aeon, 05/03/2024: Do liberal arts liberate? "In Jack London’s novel, Martin Eden personifies debates still raging over the role and purpose of education in American life."

NYRB Online May 23 2024

Literature

Clair Wills. Triumphs of Skepticism. Review of: A Memoir of My Former Self: A Life in Writing / Hilary Mantel, edited by Nicholas Pearson.

Catherine Lacey. The Woman in the Well. Review of: Forbidden Notebook / Alba de Céspedes, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein.

Ange Mlinko. Transatlantic Flights. Review of: Collected Poems of Denise Levertov / Denise Levertov, edited and annotated by Paul A. Lacey and Anne Dewey, with an introduction by Eavan Boland -- Collected Poems of Anne Stevenson / Anne Stevenson.

Christopher Byrd. ‘A Long-Tongue Saga.’ Review of: Divine Days / Leon Forrest, with a foreword by Kenneth W. Warren and a preface by Zachary Price.

Arts

Matthew Aucoin. Perpetual Expectation. Review of the Deutsche Grammophon DVD L’Amour de loin, an opera with music by Kaija Saariaho and a libretto by Amin Maalouf; directed by Peter Sellars at the Finnish National Opera, Helsinki and a performance of Innocence, an opera with music by Kaija Saariaho and a Finnish libretto by Sofi Oksanen, with multilingual contributions by Aleksi Barrière; directed by Simon Stone at the Dutch National Opera, Amsterdam.

Joanna Biggs. ‘Give Me Joy.’ Review of: Madonna: A Rebel Life / Mary Gabriel.

Fintan O'Toole. The Whistleblower We Deserve. Review of: An Enemy of the People, a play by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Amy Herzog and directed by Sam Gold, at Circle in the Square, New York City, March 18–June 23, 2024.

Architecture

Martin Filler. Supersize That? Review of: Supertall: How the World’s Tallest Buildings Are Reshaping Our Cities and Our Lives / Stefan Al -- Sky-High: A Critique of NYC’s Supertall Towers from Top to Bottom / Eric P. Nash and Bruce Katz -- Billionaires’ Row: Tycoons, High Rollers, and the Epic Race to Build the World’s Most Exclusive Skyscrapers / Katherine Clarke -- Supertall | Megatall: How High Can We Go? / Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill Architecture.

Psychology

Mike Jay. Ecstasy’s Odyssey. Review of: I Feel Love: MDMA and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World / Rachel Nuwer -- The History of MDMA / Torsten Passie in collaboration with Udo Benzenhöfer, translated from the German by Andrew Dennis.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Stephen Breyer. Choosing Pragmatism Over Textualism. "This essay is adapted from my Robert B. Silvers Lecture at the New York Public Library earlier this year, which was drawn from my Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism."

Tiya Miles. How Bondage Built the Church. Review of: The 272: The Families Who Were Enslaved and Sold to Build the American Catholic Church / Rachel L. Swarns.

Pamela Durckerman. Dr. B. Review of: American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden / Katie Rogers -- Jill: A Biography of the First Lady / Julie Pace and Darlene Superville, with Evelyn M. Duffy.

Timothy Garton Ash. Big Germany, What Now? Review of: Germany, A Nation in Its Time: Before, During, and After Nationalism, 1500–2000 / Helmut Walser Smith -- Discussing Pax Germanica: The Rise and Limits of German Hegemony in European Integration / edited by Emmanuel Comte and Fernando Guirao (to be publ. 2024) -- Wie Wir Wurden, Was Wir Sind: Eine Kurze Geschichte der Deutschen = How We Became What We Are: A Short History of the Germans / Heinrich August Winkler -- Germany in the World: A Global History, 1500–2000 / David Blackbourn -- Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942–2022 / Frank Trentmann.

Quinn Slobodian. Safe Havens. Review of: Butler to the World: How Britain Helps the World’s Worst People Launder Money, Commit Crimes, and Get Away with Anything / Oliver Bullough -- Uncommon Wealth: Britain and the Aftermath of Empire / Kojo Koram.

Michael Dirda. WaPo, 05/02/2024: For better and worse, two 18th-century scientists shaped how we see nature. Review of: Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life / Jason Roberts.

John Guillory, interviewers Nicholas Dames & John Plotz. Public Books, 05/02/2024: INTERPRET OR JUDGE?: JOHN GUILLORY ON THE FUTURE OF LITERARY CRITICISM. Discussing his Professing Criticism: Essays on the Organization of Literary Study.

Joel Conarroe, 1934-2024

Alex Williams. NYT, 05/03/2024: Joel Conarroe, ‘Hub of the New York Literary Wheel,’ Dies at 89. "An influential arts administrator and educator, he was a trusted confidant to countless writers, notably Philip Roth."

"Mr. Conarroe was a central figure in the world of letters for decades, with stints as executive director of the Modern Language Association, the nation’s leading scholarly organization for language and literature, and the president of the P.E.N. American Center, the writers’ organization. He was a tastemaker as the chairman of the National Book Award fiction jury, the Pulitzer Prize fiction jury and other such posts.

"He was best known for helming the Guggenheim Foundation from 1985 to 2003, where he was only the third president in the history of the organization."

Author of John Berryman: An introduction to the poetry -- William Carlos Williams' "Paterson": Language and Landscape.

Editor of: Eight American Poets: An Anthology -- Six American Poets

Frank Stella, 1936-2024

William Grimes. NYT, 05/04/2024: Frank Stella, Towering Artist and Master of Reinvention, Dies at 87.

His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/stellafrank

About the Yale University Library offsite shelving facility:

LSF AT 25: Inside the Library Shelving Facility that safeguards Yale’s world-class collection.

Jessica Rizzo. LARB, 05/04/2024: Theft of the Commons. Review of: Who Owns This Sentence? A History of Copyrights and Wrongs / David Bellos and Alexandre Montagu.

Abigail Arnold. Public Books, 05/06/2024: B-SIDES: L. FRANK BAUM’S “THE ENCHANTED ISLAND OF YEW.”

New book reviews from The Critic (UK):

Michael Ledger-Lomas. 05/05/2024: Big beasts versus the Bible. Review of: Impossible Monsters: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the War Between Science and Religion / Michael Taylor.

Christopher Bray. 05/04/2024: Flawed paean to a heartless auteur. Review of: Kubrick: An Odyssey / Robert P. Kolker and Nathan Abrams.

From Literary Review (UK), May 2024:

Margaret Reynolds. The Face That Felled a Tyrant King. Review of: The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It / Daisy Dunn.

Antony Spawforth. Eternity Was in Their Lips. Review of: The Cleopatras: The Forgotten Queens of Egypt / Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.

Richard Davenport-Hines. Walks on the Wild Side. Review of: Some Men in London: Queer Life, 1945–1959 / Peter Parker (ed).

Andrew Martin. Bobos versus Beaufs. Review of: Impossible City: Paris in the Twenty-First Century / Simon Kuper.

Felicity Brown. Once More unto the Bard: Shakespeare and War. Review of: Shakespeare at War: A Material History / Amy Lidster & Sonia Massai (edd).

Recently from The Conversation:

David Sterling Brown. 05/03/2024: What Shakespeare can teach us about racism.

A comparative study of The Book of Job & Alice in Wonderland:

Ryan M. Armstrong. 05/01/2024: The biblical character who goes ‘down the rabbit hole’ into an alternate reality − just like Alice in Wonderland.

Recent books & bibliography from JSTOR Daily:

Betsy Golden Kellem. 04/25/2024: Shakespeare and Fanfiction.

Matthew Wills. 04/26/2024: But Why a Penguin? "Penguin Books built on an already strong tradition of branding through cute mascot “media stars” when they introduced their cartoon bird in 1935."

Ed Simon. 04/03/2024: A Garden of Verses. "As commonplace books evolved into anthologies, they developed reputations as canonical works, their editors curating tomes as vibrant as the loveliest bouquets."

"Here are the books that were named winners and finalists in the categories of fiction, history, biography, memoir, poetry and general nonfiction."

Sophia Nguyen. WaPo, 05/06/2024: ‘Night Watch,’ ‘King: A Life,’ among 2024 Pulitzer Prize winners.

Fiction: Night Watch / Jayne Anne Phillips
General Nonfiction: A Day in the Life of Abed Salama: Anatomy of a Jerusalem Tragedy / Nathan Thrall
Memoir or Autobiography: Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice / Cristina Rivera Garza
History: No Right to an Honest Living: The Struggles of Boston’s Black Workers in the Civil War Era / Jacqueline Jones
Biography: King: A Life Jonathan Eig and Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey From Slavery to Freedom / Ilyon Woo
Poetry: Tripas: Poems / Brandon Som

Elizabeth A. Harris and Joumana Khatib. NYT, 05/06/2024: Pulitzer Prizes 2024: A Guide to the Winning Books and Finalists.

Monica Wood. LitHub, 05/07/2024: Bookshelves for Your Book Selves: Monica Wood on Why She Organizes Books by Emotion. From the author of How to Read a Book. (A novel, apparently)

Lesley Hazelton, 1945-2024

Penelope Green. NYT, 05/07/2024: Lesley Hazleton, Writer Who Tackled Religion and Fast Cars, Dies at 78. Fascinating life.

"Lesley Hazleton, a British-born, secular Jewish psychologist turned journalist and author, whose curiosity about faith and religion led her to write biographies of Muhammad, Mary and Jezebel and examine her own passions in books about agnosticism and automobiles, died on April 29 at her home, a houseboat in Seattle. She was 78.

"Ms. Hazleton announced her death herself, in an email that she scheduled to be sent to friends after she died. She had been diagnosed with terminal kidney cancer and chose to take her own life, as Washington State’s Death with Dignity Act allowed her to do legally, with the assistance of hospice volunteers."

Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/hazletonlesley

A.O. Scott. NYT, 05/06/2024: Why Kristi Noem Is in the Doghouse. As of this morning, Amazon has been blanking out reviews of her book, No going back : the truth on what’s wrong with politics and how we move America forward. Something about her dog.

Rae Hodge. Salon, 05/07/2024: How ancient Egyptian tech could save modern libraries from scourge of bookworms. Gluten-free binding.

Elisha Cohn. Public Books, 05/07/2024: IT’S NOT ONLY HUMAN STORIES WORTH TELLING: SIGRID NUNEZ’S ANIMAL NOVELS.

Lucy Hornby. LARB, 05/08/2024: Who Tells the Stories of Chinese Leaders? On Two New Biographies. Review of: Zhou Enlai: A Life / Chen Jian -- “Avec toi au pouvoir, je suis tranquille”: Hua Guofeng (1921–2008) / Stéphane Malsagne.

TLS May 10, 2024|No. 6319

Featured

Simone Gubler. Ethics man: Moral reasoning for modern times. Review of: CATASTROPHE ETHICS: How to be good in a world gone bad / Travis Rieder.

Dinah Birch. Poverty trap: Barbara Comyns’s fight for recognition. Review of: BARBARA COMYNS: A savage innocence / Avril Horner.

Rohan Maitzen. The comet in us all: Stargazing, love and wonderment in a novel of facts and faith. Review of: ENLIGHTENMENT / Sarah Perry.

Ian Penman. Head boy of Surrealism: How André Breton policed a movement for artistic freedom. Review of: WHY SURREALISM MATTERS / Mark Polizzotti.

Literature

Helen Morales. The Trojan boars: Exceptional animals in classical literature. Review of: THE TROJAN HORSE AND OTHER STORIES: Ten ancient creatures that make us human / Julia Kindt.

Juliette Bretan. Slave of the silver: Conrad’s sprawling modernist novel of South American intrigue. Review of NOSTROMO / Joseph Conrad; edited by Roger Osborne with Hugh Epstein (Cambridge University edition)

Muireann Maguire. Death by chocolate: The risky politics of eastern European crime fiction. Review of: DEATH OF THE RED RIDER: A Leningrad confidential / Yulia Yakovleva; translated by Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp -- THE SILVER BONE: The Kyiv mysteries / Andrey Kurkov; translated by Boris Dralyuk.

Michael Kerrigan. Philosophy vs common sense: A man in crisis plans an act of political resistance. Review of: HOW TO MAKE A BOMB / Rupert Thomson.

Philp Ward. The spats school of thought: The Green Hat at 100. (Essay on Michael Arlen's The Green Hat)

In Brief Review of: NORMAN MACLEAN: A life of letters and rivers / Rebecca McCarthy.

In Brief Review of: LADIES OF THE RACHMANINOFF EYES / Henry Van Dyke. (Reissue of a 1965 "novel about a gay Black teenager coming of age in late 1950s America")

Arts & Architecture

Flora Willson. Les Brillantes: A biographical compendium of women pianists. Review of: WOMEN AND THE PIANO: A history in 50 lives / Susan Tomes.

Muriel Zagha. Films you live with: Martin Scorsese on the magic of Powell and Pressburger. Review of David Hinton's documentary, narrated by Martin Scorsese, MADE IN ENGLAND: The films of Powell and Pressburger.

Sophie Oliver. Befores and afters: The transformations of motherhood, in art and life. Review of the exhibition ACTS OF CREATION: On art and motherhood, Arnolfini, Bristol, until May 26, then touring.

Susan Owens. An artist at play: The memoir of a free-spirited painter and socialite. Review of: A LOOK AT MY LIFE / Eileen Agar.

Robert Bevan. British nooks and corners: An era marked by diversity of architectural style. Review of: INTERWAR: British architecture 1919–39 / Gavin Stamp.

In Brief Review of: THE LAST BOHEMIAN: Brian Desmond Hurst, Irish film, British cinema / Lance Pettitt.

Philosophy

Ritchie Robertson. The Tinker Bell effect: The long search for equality. Review of: EQUALITY: The history of an elusive idea / Darrin M. McMahon -- BASIC EQUALITY / Paul Sagar.

Regina Rini. Student morality: What the campus protests can teach us. (Essay)

Science & Technology

Gregory Radick. Classified: The rival eighteenth-century naturalists who paved the way for Darwin. Review of: EVERY LIVING THING: The great and deadly race to know all life / Jason Roberts.

Susannah Gibson. Creatures great and old: How fossil evidence challenged biblical literalism. Review of: IMPOSSIBLE MONSTERS: Dinosaurs, Darwin and the war between science and religion / Michael Taylor.

John Foot. Il Commendatore: The man behind the flashy motors. Review of: ENZO FERRARI: The definitive biography of an icon / Luca Dal Monte.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Jessica Lightfoot. Wonder of wonders: Ancient sites felt as well as seen. Review of: THE SEVEN WONDERS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD / Bettany Hughes.

Catherine Steel. Strumpet’s fool?: Taking the measure of Mark Antony. Review of: A NOBLE RUIN: Mark Antony, civil war, and the collapse of the Roman Republic / W. Jeffrey Tatum.

Nigel Saul. State of mind: Six Plantagenet kings and the formation of England. Review of: ARISE, ENGLAND: Six kings and the making of the English state / Caroline Burt and Richard Partington.

Ollie Randall. Little England: A ‘humbler’ view of our island story. Review of: ENGLAND: Seven myths that changed a country – and how to set them straight / Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears.

Jane Ridley. Happy and glorious?: An opinionated and difficult monarch. Review of: QUEEN VICTORIA AND HER PRIME MINISTERS: A personal history / Anne Somerset.

In Brief Review of: DELIZIA!: The epic history of Italians and their food / John Dickie.

In Brief Review of: AMONG THE TROLLS: My journey through conspiracyland / Mariana Spring.

In Brief Review of: THE DARK SIDE OF SKIN / Jeferson Tenório; translated by Bruna Dantas Lobato.

In Brief Review of: BOTHY / Kat Hill. ("Following trails in the Highlands and Islands")

David Shapiro, 1947-2024

Emily Langer. WaPo, 05/07/2024: David Shapiro, poet and unwitting icon of ’68 campus protest, dies at 77. "The erudite writer was remembered -- to his chagrin -- as the cigar-wielding Columbia student in a photo that came to represent an era of campus uprisings."

"Dr. Shapiro remained proud of his opposition to the Vietnam War, his wife said. But in time, he came to regard his role in the occupation of Kirk’s office as “infantile leftism” and told the Bergen Record of New Jersey in 2018 that he would “like to apologize” for the “rudeness of my youth.” His cocksure pose in the photograph was just that, he said — a pose, even a “parody.” And the cigar was “horrible.”

Alex Williams. NYT, 05/10/2024: David Shapiro, Who Gained Fame in Poetry and Protest, Dies at 77.

"Mr. Shapiro published 11 volumes of poetry during his six-decade career. His book “You Are You: Writings and Interviews on Poetry, Art and the New York School” is scheduled to be published this fall. His 1971 collection, “A Man Holding an Acoustic Panel,” was nominated for a National Book Award.

"He was also an art historian, producing monographs on Piet Mondrian, Jasper Johns, Jim Dine and other painters. And he maintained a career in academia that included decades as an art history professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. In the 1970s, he taught English and comparative literature at his alma mater, Columbia University."

David Shapiro's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/shapirodavid-2

Richard Fallon. Public Domain, 05/02/2024: Professor Megalow’s Dinosaur Bones: Richard Owen and Victorian Literature.

"Richard Owen, the Victorian scientist who first named the “dinosaurs”, claimed that he could identify an animal, even an extinct one, from inspecting a single bone. Richard Fallon revisits other Owen-inspired fictions — by R. D. Blackmore, William Makepeace Thackeray, and Charles Kingsley — and finds literature layered with scientific, religious, and political interventions, spurred by the discovery of prehistoric life."

Kristen Malone Poli. LARB, 05/09/2024: Mythic Appetites: On Meta-Desires, Marriage, and Meals in the Personal Essay. Appears to feature thoughts on: Heartburn / Nora Ephron -- The Chronology of Water / Lidia Yuknavitch -- Splinters: another kind of love story / Leslie Jamison.

Recent New Yorker book reviews:

Maya Jasanoff. 05/06/2024: What the Origins of Humanity Can and Can’t Tell Us. Apparently a review of The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins / Stefanos Geroulanos, but somewhat of an essay on the uses of prehistory in various books.

Jennifer Wilson. 05/06/2024: Claire Messud’s New Novel Maps the Search for a Home That Never Was. Review of: This Strange Eventful History / Claire Messud.

Ryo Morimoto, interviewers Elizabeth Ferry & John Plotz. Public Books, 05/09/2024: FALLOUT AS A PROCESS: RYO MORIMOTO ON FUKUSHIMA. Morimoto discusses his new book Nuclear Ghost: Atomic Livelihoods in Fukushima’s Gray Zone.

Adania Shibli. Paris Review, 05/08/2024: Book as Enemy. "Smoking might be banned at book fairs, while one doesn’t expect books to be banned from book fairs. Even if a character in one of the books exhibited at a fair is smoking, this wouldn’t lead to a ban on characters smoking in books, or to a ban on that specific book."

Brittany Allen. LitHub, 05/09/2024: Against the objectification of books (or, some thoughts on The Discourse).

NICOLÁS MEDINA MORA. The Millions, 05/07/2024: Against ‘Latin American Literature.’

Shirley Conran, 1932-2024

Lucy Night. Guardian, 05/09/2024: Shirley Conran, campaigner and ‘queen of the bonkbuster’, dies aged 91.

"Lace, her world-famous debut novel about four friends who meet a film star in a Manhattan hotel, is “really intensely researched sexual information dressed up as a novel”, Conran told Rachel Cooke of the Observer in a 2012 interview.

"Lace has sold more than 3m copies in 35 countries. In 1984, it was adapted into a TV miniseries in the US starring Bess Armstrong, Brooke Adams and Arielle Dombasle. “Lace is exuberantly, fabulously over-the-top,” wrote Sarah Hughes on the novel’s 30th anniversary in 2012. “Its heroines suffer no fools, take no prisoners and leave few bonkbuster cliches unused.”

"The bestselling “queen of the bonkbuster” was also the founder of the Maths Anxiety Trust, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to help people who experience anxiety or fear when faced with maths problems. Last week Conran was awarded a damehood in her bed in Charing Cross hospital in London for her services to mathematics education."

Her LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/conranshirley

Elaine Godfrey. The Atlantic, 05/09/2024: The Book You’re Reading Might Be Wrong. "Most nonfiction isn’t fact-checked."

Recent book reviews from The Critic (UK):

"A new book maintains that enslaved scribes and readers may have affected the shaping of Christian ideas":

Josey Wright. 05/13/2024: Was The Bible written by slaves? Review of: God’s Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible / Candida Moss.

Neoliberalism back in the day:

Alex Middleton. 05/10/2024: When the Left thought free trade meant peace. Review of: Pax Economica: Left-Wing Visions of a Free Trade World / Marc-William Palen.

Outlier child-bearing women:

Phoebe Arslangic-Little. 05/07/2024: Fruitful discussion. Review of: Hannah’s Children: the Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth / Catherine Ruth Pakaluk.

Alice Munro, 1931-2024

Emily Langer. 05/14/2024: Alice Munro, Nobel Prize-winning short-story ‘master,’ dies at 92.

"Alice Munro, a towering woman of letters for the past half-century whose works of short fiction illuminated the emotional terrain of seemingly ordinary lives, and who was honored at the end of her career with the Nobel Prize in literature, died May 13 in Port Hope, Ontario. She was 92.

"Brought up to be a farmer’s wife, Mrs. Munro said she “never intended to be a short-story writer” and that she turned to the form because the demands of motherhood did not permit her to write longer works."

Anthony DePalma. NYT, 05/14/2024: Alice Munro, Nobel Laureate and Master of the Short Story, Dies at 92.

Gregory Cowles. NYT, 05/14/2024: Alice Munro, a Literary Alchemist Who Made Great Fiction From Humble Lives.

Ben Dolnick. NYT, 01/31/2024: The Essential Alice Munro. "The only prerequisite for reading the Nobel laureate, a master of short stories, is: having lived. Here’s where to start.

Richard Lea & Sian Cain. Guardian, 05/14/2024: Alice Munro, Nobel winner and titan of the short story, dies aged 92.

Adrian Horton. Guardian, 05/14/2024: A life in quotes: Alice Munro.

Lisa Allardice. Guardian, 05/15/2024: ‘Reading her stories is like watching a virtuoso pianist perform’: Alice Munro remembered.

Lorrie Moore. Atlantic, 05/14/2024: What Alice Munro Has Left Us. "A reflection on the death at 92 of the Nobel Prize–winning master of the short story."

Deborah Treisman. New Yorker, 05/14/2024: Alice Munro Reinvigorated the Short Story.

James Wood. New Yorker, 10/10/2013 (when she won the Nobel Prize): Alice Munro, Our Chekhov.

Alice Munro, interviewers Jeanne McCulloch & Mona Simpson. Paris Review, issue 131, Summer 1994: Alice Munro, The Art of Fiction No. 137.

Emily Temple. LitHub, 05/14/2024: Remembering Alice Munro: 1931-2024.

NYRB Online June 6 2024 provided links to reviews of Alice Munro's books over the years:

Hermione Lee. 02/15/2015: Alice Munro’s Magic. Review of: Family Furnishings: Selected Stories, 1995–2014 / Alice Munro.

Cathleen Schine. 01/10/2013: Blown Away by Alice Munro. Review of: Dear Life / Alice Munro.

Lorrie Moore. 01/17/2002: Artship. Review of: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage / Alice Munro.

Joyce Carol Oates. 12/03/2009: ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ Review of: Too Much Happiness: Stories / Alice Munro.

Alison Lurie. 12/21/2006: The Lamp in the Mausoleum. Review of: The View from Castle Rock: Stories / Alice Munro -- Carried Away: A Selection of Stories / Alice Munro, with an introduction by Margaret Atwood -- Alice Munro: Writing Her Lives: A Biography / Robert Thacker -- Lives of Mothers and Daughters: Growing Up with Alice Munro / Sheila Munro.

Al Alvarez. 02/10/2005: Life Studies. Review of: Runaway / Alice Munro.

Alice Munro's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author_controller.php?page=main&author=munroali...

I'll add other tributes as they appear.

Plus this late breaking news (temporarily unlocked):

Elizabeth A. Harris. NYT, 07/07/2024: Weeks After Alice Munro’s Death, Daughter Tells of Dark Family Secret. "Andrea Skinner said in The Toronto Star that her stepfather sexually abused her at age 9, and that her mother stayed with him after she learned of it."

Recently from LARB:

Saikat Majumdar. 05/14/2024: The Fiction of Rational Miracles: On Amit Chaudhuri’s NYRB Classics Reissues: A Strange and Sublime Address -- Freedom Song -- Afternoon Raag.

Anna Levett. 05/14/2024: All of This, My Dear Sir, Is Surrealism. Review of: Why Surrealism Matters / Mark Polizzotti.

Andrew Graybill. 05/12/2024: Rooting in the Dirt. Review of: Cast Out of Eden: The Untold Story of John Muir, Indigenous Peoples, and the American Wilderness / Robert Aquinas McNally.

Justin Wigard. 05/11/2024: Scars Prove You Lived. Review of the 3rd volume of Stephen Graham Jones's Indian Lake horror trilogy: The Angel of Indian Lake (the others are: My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021) & Don’t Fear the Reaper (2023))

Duncan Stuart. The Millions, 05/14/2024: Elias Canetti’s Words Against Death. Mostly about the new translation of Canetti's The Book Against Death / translated by Peter Filkins (scheduled for publication August 6 per Amazon).

Patrick Sauer. WaPo, 05/14/2024: ‘Charlie Hustle’ tells the full, seedy story of Pete Rose’s epic fall. Review of: Charlie Hustle: The Rise and Fall of Pete Rose, and the Last Glory Days of Baseball / Keith O'Brien.

Jerome Groopman. 05/13/2024: Can Forgetting Help You Remember? Review of: Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters / Charan Ranganath.

Michael O'Donnell. The Millions, 05/15/2024: Sharp Bookmark: On Salman Rushdie’s ‘Knife.’ Regarding Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder / Salman Rushdie.

TLS May 17, 2024|No. 6320

Featured

Miranda France. The odd throuple: How sex and relationships are evolving in the digital age. Review of: THE END OF LOVE: Sex and desire in the twenty-first century / Tamara Tenenbaum; translated by Carolina Parodi -- SIX IN A BED: The future of love – from sex dolls and avatars to polyamory / Roanne van Voorst; translated by Liz Waters -- MORE: A memoir of open marriage / Molly Roden Winter.

Nat Segnit. Artistic differences: The third novel in Hari Kunzru’s three-colours trilogy. Review of: BLUE RUIN / Hari Kunzru.

Janet Todd. Restoration romp: The elopement that inspired Aphra Behn to write one of the first novels in English. Review of: THE SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY: Aphra Behn, a rebellious daughter and the astonishing story of England’s first novel / Lisa Hilton (apparently refers to Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister.

Claire M.L. Bourne, Aaron T. Pratt, & Jason Scott-Warren. The hand of Milton: Identifying the author’s annotated copy of Holinshed’s Chronicles. (Essay)

Literature, Language, & Linguistics

N.J. Enfield. Language lessons: Revolutionizing the way we write and speak. Review of: THE FUTURE OF LANGUAGE: How technology, politics and utopianism are transforming the way we communicate / Philip Seargeant.

Vanessa Braganza. Happily ever after?: Canonical literature’s neglected heroines. Review of: THE LOST PRINCESS: Women writers and the history of classic fairy tales / Anne E. Duggan.

Emelyne Godfrey. Pipes, airguns and wynds: Conan Doyle’s cerebral hero and his afterlife. Review of: THE WORLDS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES: The inspiration behind the world’s greatest detective / Andrew Lycett.

Boyd Tonkin. The bread of sorrow: Georgi Gospodinov’s aesthetic of dilapidation and decay. Review of: THE STORY SMUGGLER / Georgi Gospodinov; translated by Kristina Kovacheva and Dan Gunn -- THE PHYSICS OF SORROW / Georgi Gospodinov; translated by Angela Rodel.

Liam Bishop. In the name of the father: Dark clouds gather over a family reunion. Review of: THE SON OF MAN / Jean-Baptiste Del Amo; translated by Frank Wynne.

Craig Raine. Madame Bovary as pattern book: Flaubert’s literary step change. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: THE MAN WHO CRIED I AM / John A. Williams.

In Brief Review of: THE TWO LOVES OF SOPHIE STROM / Sam Taylor.

Arts

Adam Mars-Jones. A Shakespearean end: The tragicomic business of death charted in a new film. Review of Simon Chambers's documentary Much Ado About Dying, on the dying of his uncle over the course of 4 years.

Nathalie Olah. Bumping off the leisured class: Why we are still so fascinated by Patricia Highsmith’s creations. Review of the Netflix series Ripley.

Maaret Koskinen. Brand Bergman: The Swedish film-maker helped to construct his biographical legend. Review of: GOD AND THE DEVIL: The life and work of Ingmar Bergman / Peter Cowie.

In Brief Review of: LOST IN TRANSLATION: BFI Film Classics / Suzanne Ferriss.

Philosophy

Crispin Sartwell. No way out for Derrida: The political philosophy that dare not speak its name. Review of: STOP THIEF!: Anarchism and philosophy / Catherine Malabou; translated by Carolyn Shread.

Stuart Walton. Busy doing nothing: Spiritual immobility in modern life. Review of: THE TRIUMPH OF THE SLIPPERS: On the withdrawal from the world / Pascal Bruckner; translated by Cory Stockwell.

Science & Technology

Wendy Moore. A wicked organ: The gut in medicine, politics and literature. Review of: RUMBLES: A curious history of the gut / Elsa Richardson.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Elizabeth Scott-Baumann. Rooms of their own: Four Elizabethan women writers obscured by history. Review of: SHAKESPEARE’S SISTERS: Four women who wrote the Renaissance / Ramie Targoff.

Josh Raymond. Check your spiritual privilege: Primal screaming, flotation tanks and corrupt gurus in the 1970s. Review of: WELL BEINGS: How the Seventies lost its mind and taught us to find ourselves / James Riley.

Barbara Graziosi. Sing the song of sorrow: A family trauma and the study of the classics. Review of: FACING DOWN THE FURIES: Suicide, the ancient Greeks, and me / Edith Hall.

Anna Parker. Tales from Europe: Radio as a tool of resistance and repression in Czechoslovakia. Review of: RADIO AND THE PERFORMANCE OF GOVERNMENT: Broadcasting by the Czechoslovaks in exile in London, 1939–1945 / Erica Harrison -- RED TAPE: Radio and politics in Czechoslovakia, 1945–1969 / Rosamund Johnston.

Alice Kelly. The other front line: Eight female resistance fighters in occupied France and Belgium. Review of: I AM NOT AFRAID OF LOOKING INTO THE RIFLES: Women of the resistance in World War One / Rick Stroud.

Malte Herwig. Writing back: German prison literature and the rejection of ‘nobodification.’ Review of: SHADOWLAND: The story of Germany told by its prisoners / Sarah Colvin.

Josh Ireland. Anarchy in the UK: The story of the siege of Sidney Street. Review of: A DEVILISH KIND OF COURAGE: Anarchists, aliens and the siege of Sidney Street / Andrew Whitehead.

In Brief Review of: LAW IS A MORAL PRACTICE / Scott Hershovitz.

In Brief Review of: THE TALE OF A WALL: Reflections on hope and freedom / Nasser Abu Srour; translated by Luke Leafgren.

In Brief Review of: WOMEN AND THE MINERS’ STRIKE, 1984-1985 / Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite and Natalie Thomlinson.

In Brief Review of: THE SPINNING HOUSE: How Cambridge University locked up women in its private prison / Caroline Biggs.

Andrew Scull. LARB, 05/16/2024: How Anecdotes Sell Drugs: On the 30th Anniversary Edition of Peter Kramer’s “Listening to Prozac.”

Michael Dirda. WaPo, 05/18/2024: 10 rules for reading from someone who does it for a living.

Elisabeth Egan. NYT, 05/18/2024: Inside Reese Witherspoon’s Literary Empire. "When her career hit a wall, the Oscar-winning actor built a ladder made of books — for herself, and for others."

John McPhee's occasional Tabula Rasa series on the writing life in The New Yorker:

01/06/2020: Volume 1. Travel, Thornton Wilder, & Old Person Projects.

04/12/2021: Volume 2. An anti-cautionary tale for young writers.

01/31/2022: Volume 3. Why write a whole book about oranges.

05/13/2024: Volume 4. Wordle, proofing, & notes to future editors.

NYRB June 6 2024

Literature

Fintan O'Toole. No Comfort. "This essay appears, in somewhat different form, as the introduction to Shakespeare Is Hard, But So Is Life (Head of Zeus, 2024)."

Ruth Margalit. The Best Time of His Life. Review of: Great Expectations / Vinson Cunningham.

Larry Rohter. In the Heart of Bahia. Review of: Crooked Plow / Itamar Vieira Junior, translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz.

Arts

Colin B. Bailey. Let There Be Light. Review of: Look Again: European Paintings, 1300–1800, a new installation of the permanent collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Mark O'Connell. Neglecting Beckett. Review of: Dance First / a film directed by James Marsh. "James Marsh’s biopic Dance First runs into some predictable problems in adapting the life of a writer, especially one as recognizable as Samuel Beckett."

Science

Peter Godfrey-Smith. Visible and Invisible Worlds. Review of: An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us / Ed Yong -- Sentient: How Animals Illuminate the Wonder of Our Human Senses / Jackie Higgins -- When Animals Dream: The Hidden World of Animal Consciousness / David M. Peña-Guzmán.

Religion

Peter Browns. The Workings of the Spirit. Review of: Christendom: The Triumph of a Religion, AD 300–1300 / Peter Heather.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Susan Neiman. Fanon the Universalist. Review of: The Rebel’s Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon / Adam Shatz -- Fanon’s Dialectic of Experience / Ato Sekyi-Otu.

Sarah Birke & Carlos Bravo Regidor. Mexico’s Politics of Bitterness. (Article: "On the eve of Mexico’s presidential elections, Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintains a high approval rating. But his constitutional chicanery and disregard for the law have undermined democracy, and his divisive rhetoric has polarized the country.")

Rachel Donadio. Meloni’s Cultural Revolution. (Article: "What changes has Italy’s far-right prime minister wrought")

Aryeh Neier. Is Israel Committing Genocide? (Article: "I have been engaged for six decades in the human rights movement, which has endeavored to restore peace by enforcing International Humanitarian Law. Can the law bring a measure of justice to the victims of Israel’s and Hamas’s violence?")

NYRB's tribute to Alice Munro in this issue is a series of links to reviews of her works (& biographical material) published over the years at >113 featherbear:

New Yorker books round-up:

Anthony Lane. 05/20/2024: Can You Read a Book in a Quarter of an Hour? "Phone apps now offer to boil down entire books into micro-synopses. What they leave out is revealing."

Henry Alford. 05/20/2024: Saying Yes to the Dress—at the Library. "A New Jersey librarian named Adele Puccio matches brides with pre-owned wedding gowns, from her office near Current Nonfiction."

Alexandra Schwartz. 05/10/2024: Miranda July Turns the Lights On. "A few years ago, July began writing a novel, “All Fours,” about how middle age changes sex, marriage, and ambition. Then the novel changed her."

Benjamin Wallace-Wells. 05/13/2024: Class Consciousness for Billionaires. Review of: As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West / Guido Alfani.

Kyle Chayka. 05/15/2024: Who Wins and Who Loses When We Share a Meme. Review of: Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today / Claire Bishop -- Black Meme: A History of The Images That Make Us / Legacy Russell.

Thomas Mallon. 05/20/2024: Garth Risk Hallberg Takes On the Life-and-Times Novel. Review of: The Second Coming: A novel / Garth Risk Hallberg.

Lauren Michele Jackson. 05/20/2024: We Must Defend the Bust. Review of: Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, & Witches Tell Us About Breasts / Sarah Thornton.

Jessie Gaynor. LitHub, 05/21/2024: Jessie Gaynor on Rereading The Corrections While Navigating Her Mother’s Parkinson’s. Here's the touchstone so I don't mess up the link: The Corrections /Jonathan Franzen.

Recently from The Critic (UK):

Pierre d'Alancaisez. 05/21/2024: Losing the battle, losing the war. Review of: Battle for the Museum: Cultural Institutions in Crisis / Rachel Spence.

Krzysztof Tyszka-Drozdowski. 05/20/2024: Europe between the Seine and the Tiber. Review of: L’Europe et la Souveraineté: Approches franco-italiennes 1897-2023 / sous la direction de Maria Elena Cavallaro, Gaetano Quagliariello, & Dominique Reynie et PLEIN JOUR. "an interesting attempt to stimulate more independent thought on European affairs. It consists of important articles and speeches by Italian and French politicians about the European project."

Jonathan Parry. 05/14/2024: Not amused: Victoria in her own words. Review of: Queen Victoria and Her Prime Ministers: A Personal History / Anne Somerset. "Beneath the excitable phrases and endless underlining, Victoria’s correspondence doggedly promoted a coherent policy."

Darren O'Byrne. 05/14/2024: Fighting lies with lies. Review of: How to Win an Information War: The Propagandist Who Outwitted Hitler / Peter Pomerantsev.

James Stevens Curl. 05/19/2024: The triumph of the Classical. Review of: The Language of Architectural Classicism: From Looking to Seeing / Edward McParland.

John Self. 05/21/2024: Eyes on the prizes — and the surprises. "there are enough book awards around that this month’s compendium consists solely of novels that have won prizes — two of which came before publication in the UK": The Home Child / Liz Berry -- Tell / Jonathan Buckley -- Overstaying / Ariane Koch, translated by Damion Searls.

Alex Marshall. NYT, 05/21/2024: Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ Wins the International Booker Prize. "Translated by Michael Hofmann, it’s the first novel originally written in German to win the major literary award."

Dwight Garner. NYT, 05/29/2023: In Cold War Berlin, an Affair Born of Chaos and Control. Last year's review of: Kairos / Jenny Erpenbeck. Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann.

Sebastian Junger, interviewer Elisabeth Egan. 05/21/2024: Sebastian Junger Is Reporting Live From the Brink of Death. On his memoir In My Time of Dying: how I came face-to-face with the idea of an afterlife / Sebastian Junger.

Alexandra Alter & Elizabeth A. Harris. NYT, 05/20/2024: Penguin Random House Dismisses Two of Its Top Publishers. "The departures of Reagan Arthur, who led Alfred A. Knopf, and Lisa Lucas, who held the top job at Pantheon and Schocken, came as a surprise to many in the company."

"A person in publishing familiar with the decision, and who requested anonymity in order to share details about the restructuring process, said the departures were part of a cost-saving measure. No publisher will replace Lucas at Pantheon, the person said.

"The departure of two prominent publishers comes at a moment when Penguin Random House and other big publishing houses are facing financial challenges, with rising supply chain costs and sluggish print sales. Publishers’ sales were flat in the first quarter of 2024, according to a recent report from the Association of American Publishers."

TLS May 24, 2024|No. 6321

Featured

Timothy Garton Ash. Where is Central Europe now?: A continent’s shifting mental geography. (Essay)

Kate McLoughlin. Politics of empathy: In a future Iceland, a lack of sensitivity is a clinical disorder. Review of: THE MARK / Fríða Ísberg; translated by Larissa Kyzer.

David Edgerton. The Red Flag at half mast: How the electoral system and Tory governments shape the Labour party. Review of: A CENTURY OF LABOUR / Jon Cruddas -- KEEPING THE RED FLAG FLYING: The Labour Party in opposition since 1922 / Mark Garnett, Gavin Hyman And Richard Johnson -- LABOUR TAKES POWER: The Denis MacShane diaries 1997–2001 / Denis MacShane -- THE SEARCHERS: Five rebels, their dream of a different Britain, and their many enemies / Andy Beckett.

Literature

Emily Gowers. Portrait of a Roman pacifist: Filling the gaps in the life of the shy author of the ‘Aeneid.’ Review of: VERGIL: The poet’s life / Sarah Ruden.

Ad Putter. Telling more Tales: Chaucer’s diverse literary legacy. Review of: CHAUCER HERE AND NOW / Marion Turner, editor.

Leo Lensing. Schnitzler says no: The author disavowed his interviews with the press. Review of: “DAS ZEITLOSE IST VON KÜRZESTER DAUER”: Interviews, Meinungen und Proteste 1891–1931 / ARTHUR SCHNITZLER; edited by Martin Anton Müller.

Katherine Cooper. Haunted by a sense of home: A prolific novelist inspired by the coasts and moors of Whitby. Review of: JOURNEY FROM THE NORTH: A memoir / Storm Jameson.

Catherine Taylor. Exit sign: A restless perimenopausal woman embraces her desires. Review of: ALL FOURS / Miranda July.

Lindsay Duguid. Emblems of luxury: The seventy-year saga of a French-Algerian family. Review of: THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY / Claire Messud.

M. John Harrison. Would I eat you?: A poetics of zombie existence. Review of: IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER / Anne de Marcken.

Yvonne Redick. This vegetable love: A garden journal in verse. Review of: THE PASTORACLASM / John Kinsella.

Arts

Sophie Oliver. Dressed for success: An innovator who lived her work. Review of the exhibition SONIA DELAUNAY: Living art, Bard Graduate Center, New York, until July 7.

Jim Keaveney. Nowhere to hide: A claustrophobic production of a mid-century masterpiece. Review of Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath, until June 1.

Philosophy

In Brief Review of: HOW TO THINK LIKE A PHILOSOPHER: Scholars, dreamers and sages who can teach us how to live / Peter Cave.

Religion

Lucy Beckett. A practical faith: Peter Ackroyd’s Protestant reading of English Christianity. Review of: THE ENGLISH SOUL: The faith of a nation / Peter Ackroyd.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Kate Brown. Feast and famine: The Russian diet in history. Review of: RUSSIAN FOOD SINCE 1800: Empire at table / Catriona Kelly -- WHAT’S COOKING IN THE KREMLIN: A modern history of Russia through the kitchen door / Witold Szabłowski; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Mary Hitchman. Penny wise: The primacy of money in a period of scarcity. Review of: MAKING MONEY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES / Rory Naismith.

Emelyne Godfrey. A grand adventure: The woman who bridged Wollstonecraft and first-wave feminism. Review of: TRAILBLAZER: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: The first feminist to change our world / Jane Robinson.

Nicola Shulman. Gardener’s question time: A private sanctuary that is open to all. Review of: THE GARDEN AGAINST TIME: In search of a common paradise / Olivia Laing.

Polly Jones. In empire’s shadow: The post-Soviet identity of Latvia’s Russian speakers. Review of: BORDER CONDITIONS: Russian-speaking Latvians between world orders / Kevin M. F. Platt.

Conrad Ladin. Seeking northern exposure: The struggle between central and local government. Review of: HEAD NORTH: A rallying cry for a more equal Britain / Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram -- THE NORTH WILL RISE AGAIN: In search of the future in northern heartlands / Alex Niven.

Ian Sansom. Going backwards: The feast of Barmecide. (Essay)

TLS May 24, 2024|No. 6321

Featured

Timothy Garton Ash. Where is Central Europe now?: A continent’s shifting mental geography. (Essay)

Kate McLoughlin. Politics of empathy: In a future Iceland, a lack of sensitivity is a clinical disorder. Review of: THE MARK / Fríða Ísberg; translated by Larissa Kyzer.

David Edgerton. The Red Flag at half mast: How the electoral system and Tory governments shape the Labour party. Review of: A CENTURY OF LABOUR / Jon Cruddas -- KEEPING THE RED FLAG FLYING: The Labour Party in opposition since 1922 / Mark Garnett, Gavin Hyman And Richard Johnson -- LABOUR TAKES POWER: The Denis MacShane diaries 1997–2001 / Denis MacShane -- THE SEARCHERS: Five rebels, their dream of a different Britain, and their many enemies / Andy Beckett.

Literature

Emily Gowers. Portrait of a Roman pacifist: Filling the gaps in the life of the shy author of the ‘Aeneid.’ Review of: VERGIL: The poet’s life / Sarah Ruden.

Ad Putter. Telling more Tales: Chaucer’s diverse literary legacy. Review of: CHAUCER HERE AND NOW / Marion Turner, editor.

Leo Lensing. Schnitzler says no: The author disavowed his interviews with the press. Review of: “DAS ZEITLOSE IST VON KÜRZESTER DAUER”: Interviews, Meinungen und Proteste 1891–1931 / ARTHUR SCHNITZLER; edited by Martin Anton Müller.

Katherine Cooper. Haunted by a sense of home: A prolific novelist inspired by the coasts and moors of Whitby. Review of: JOURNEY FROM THE NORTH: A memoir / Storm Jameson.

Catherine Taylor. Exit sign: A restless perimenopausal woman embraces her desires. Review of: ALL FOURS / Miranda July.

Lindsay Duguid. Emblems of luxury: The seventy-year saga of a French-Algerian family. Review of: THIS STRANGE EVENTFUL HISTORY / Claire Messud.

M. John Harrison. Would I eat you?: A poetics of zombie existence. Review of: IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT'S OVER / Anne de Marcken.

Yvonne Redick. This vegetable love: A garden journal in verse. Review of: THE PASTORACLASM / John Kinsella.

In Brief Review of: STEFAN GEORGE: The homosexual imaginary / Peter Morgan.

In Brief Review of: FOREST SILVER / E.M. Ward.

In Brief Review of: Selected Plays / Cathy Crabb.

In Brief Review of: LIKE LOVE: Essays and conversations / Maggie Nelson.

Arts

Sophie Oliver. Dressed for success: An innovator who lived her work. Review of the exhibition SONIA DELAUNAY: Living art, Bard Graduate Center, New York, until July 7.

Jim Keaveney. Nowhere to hide: A claustrophobic production of a mid-century masterpiece. Review of Terence Rattigan's play The Deep Blue Sea, Ustinov Studio, Theatre Royal Bath, until June 1.

In Brief Review of: Curses / Kevin Huizenga. (comics)

Philosophy

In Brief Review of: HOW TO THINK LIKE A PHILOSOPHER: Scholars, dreamers and sages who can teach us how to live / Peter Cave.

Religion

Lucy Beckett. A practical faith: Peter Ackroyd’s Protestant reading of English Christianity. Review of: THE ENGLISH SOUL: The faith of a nation / Peter Ackroyd.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Kate Brown. Feast and famine: The Russian diet in history. Review of: RUSSIAN FOOD SINCE 1800: Empire at table / Catriona Kelly -- WHAT’S COOKING IN THE KREMLIN: A modern history of Russia through the kitchen door / Witold Szabłowski; translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Mary Hitchman. Penny wise: The primacy of money in a period of scarcity. Review of: MAKING MONEY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES / Rory Naismith.

Emelyne Godfrey. A grand adventure: The woman who bridged Wollstonecraft and first-wave feminism. Review of: TRAILBLAZER: Barbara Leigh Smith Bodichon: The first feminist to change our world / Jane Robinson.

Nicola Shulman. Gardener’s question time: A private sanctuary that is open to all. Review of: THE GARDEN AGAINST TIME: In search of a common paradise / Olivia Laing.

Polly Jones. In empire’s shadow: The post-Soviet identity of Latvia’s Russian speakers. Review of: BORDER CONDITIONS: Russian-speaking Latvians between world orders / Kevin M. F. Platt.

Conrad Ladin. Seeking northern exposure: The struggle between central and local government. Review of: HEAD NORTH: A rallying cry for a more equal Britain / Andy Burnham and Steve Rotheram -- THE NORTH WILL RISE AGAIN: In search of the future in northern heartlands / Alex Niven.

Ian Sansom. Going backwards: The feast of Barmecide. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: GLOBETROTTING: Writers walk the world / Duncan Minshull, editor.

Meg Schoerke. The Hudson Review, spring 2024: “To be alive, is power”: Emily Dickinson’s Letters. Review of: THE LETTERS OF EMILY DICKINSON / ed. by Cristanne Miller and Domhnall Mitchell.

Matthew Reisz. The Guardian, 05/21/2024: The past isn’t a foreign place Review of: Nostalgia: A History of a Dangerous Emotion / Agnes Arnold-Forster. "The historian’s wide-ranging exploration of wistful reminiscence cautiously champions its benefits to society and challenges the view that it is dangerous and foolish."

Recent New Yorker:

Paige Williams. 05/23/2024: Not Your Childhood Library. "An ambitious experiment in Minneapolis is changing the way librarians work with their homeless patrons and challenging how we share public space."

Krithika Varagur. 05/23/2024: The Journalist Biography in an Age of Crisis. Review of: Chasing Hope: A Reporter's Life / Nicholas D. Kristof -- The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters / Susan Page.

Adam Gopnik. 05/20/2024: Why Liberals Struggle to Defend Liberalism. Review of: Rebellion: How Antiliberalism Is Tearing America Apart--Again / Robert Kagan -- Liberalism as a Way of Life / Alexandre Lefebvre -- Free and Equal: A Manifesto for a Just Society / Daniel Chandler -- The New Leviathans: Thoughts After Liberalism / John Gray. With reference to older material such as: The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century / Helena Rosenblatt -- A Theory of Justice / John Rawls.

Jennifer Schuessler. NYT, 05/23/2024, updated 05/24/2024: A Furious, Forgotten Slave Narrative Resurfaces After Nearly 170 Years.

John S. Jacobs was the brother of Harriet Jacobs, author of Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Jacobs, a fugitive slave who escaped to Australia, wrote a combination autobiography & denunciation of slavery in the US in an Australian newspaper in 1855, which was re-discovered in an archive search of Australian newspapers by professor Jonathan D.S. Schroeder; published in book form for the first time by U of Chicago Press: The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery; A Rediscovered Narrative, with a Full Biography / John S. Jacobs.

Caleb Carr, 1955-2024

Penelope Green. NYT, 05/24/2024: Caleb Carr, Author of Dark Histories, Dies at 68.

Carr is probably best known as the author of the historical novel The Alienist, though he started out as a military historian.

Caleb Carr's LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/carrcaleb

Benjamin Balint. NYT, 05/23/2024: Everyone Wants a Piece of Kafka, a Writer Who Refused to Be Claimed. "A hundred years after Kafka’s death, people and nations are still fighting over his legacy."

Uwan Johnson. Quillette, 05/23/2024: The Problem with Utopias: The history of utopian fiction proves that we can’t even imagine a better world.

Maris Kreizman. LitHub, 05/23/2024: “It’s Out of Africa Meets Pretty Woman!” On the Problem With Comp Titles.

Gary Saul Morson. New Criterion, 06/2024: The masterpiece of our time. "On The Gulag Archipelago at fifty."

TLS May 31, 2024|No. 6322

Featured

Becca Rothfeld. Infinite hope, but none for us: ‘What has Kafka taught you about the possibilities of literature?’ (Essay)

Karen Leeder. An unsettling vision: Franz Kafka reconsidered, 100 years after his death. Review of: DER PROCESS / Franz Kafka; edited by Reiner Stach -- KAFKAS WERKSTATT: Der Schriftsteller bei der Arbeit / Andreas Kilcher -- SELECTED STORIES / Franz Kafka; translated by Mark Harman.

Claire Lowden. Brushstrokes: Colm Tóibín consults the colour chart in his follow-up to Brooklyn. Review of: LONG ISLAND / Colm Tóibín.

Prashant Kidambi. Democracy à la Modi: Autocracy, with Indian characteristics. Review of: GUJARAT UNDER MODI: Laboratory of today’s India / Christophe Jaffrelot -- THE INCARCERATIONS: BK-16 and the search for democracy in India / Alpa Shah.

Literature & Language

J.S. Barnes. Poe in the pit: A melodramatic life. Review of: FALLEN ANGEL: The life of Edgar Allen Poe / Robert Morgan.

In Brief Review of: NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: the life of the author / Dale Salwak.

Irina Dumitrescu. Escape to the familiar: The heroics of everyday people. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: THE UNITED STATES OF ENGLISH: The American language from colonial times to the twenty-first century / Rosemarie Ostler.

Mia Livitin. Finding the magic in mothering: stories that offer portals into other possibilities. Review of: OPENINGS / Lucy Caldwell.

Alex Clark. Before the Tiger roared: Secrets and intrigue in the run-up to Ireland’s referendum on divorce. Review of: THE COAST ROAD / Alan Murrin.

Patricia Craig. Ride it like you own it: A nineteenth-century twist on a medieval Irish tale. Review of: THE HEART IN WINTER / Kevin Barry.

Freya Berry. Plate tectonics: Four sisters confront their fractured pasts. Review of: THE ALTERNATIVES / Caoilinn Hughes.

Arts

Maria Margaronis. A many-faceted thing: A much-loved memoir of pain, perception and the colour blue, brought to life on stage. Review of: BLUETS Adapted by Margaret Perry from the memoir by Maggie Nelson, Royal Court, London, until June 29.

Rod Mengham. Playing with fire: One man’s mission to take American art around the world. Review of: ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG, ROCI, Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, London, until June 15. (ROCI=Rauschenberg Overseas Culture Interchange)

Medicine & Psychiatry

Druin Burch. The doctor is sick: The problems of a flawed profession. Review of: YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE MAD TO WORK HERE: A psychiatrist’s life / Benji Waterhouse.

Andrew Scull. When they’re all out to get you: Treatments for paranoia are unsupported by evidence. Review of: PARANOIA: A journey into extreme mistrust and anxiety / Daniel Freeman.

Samara Linton. American bedlam: The disturbing story of a ‘Hospital for the Negro Insane’ in Maryland. Review of: MADNESS: Race and insanity in a Jim Crow asylum / Antonia Hylton.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Natasha Lehrer. A Jewish life: The heroic survival of Alfred Dreyfus, victim of French antisemitism. Review of: ALFRED DREYFUS: The man at the center of the affair / Maurice Samuels.

Norma Clarke. Run, run, run: A songwriter uncovers her grandfather’s harrowing story. Review of: The Piano Player of Budapest: A True Story of Survival, Hope, and Music / Roxanne de Bastion.

Christy Edwall. Between the lines: English teaching as a vocation and a discipline. Review of: READING LESSONS: The books we read at school, the conversations they spark and why they matter / Carol Atherton.

In Brief Review of: RIVALS IN THE STORM: How Lloyd George seized power, won the war and lost his government / Damian Collins.

In Brief Review of: SLUM BOY: A portrait / Juano Diaz.

In Brief Review of: KNOW YOUR PLACE: How society sets us up to fail – and what we can do about it / Faiza Shaheen.

Sports Related

David Horspool. Shakespeare in the slips: Cricket, a game of literary consequences. Review of: ECHOING GREENS: How cricket shaped the English imagination / Brendan Cooper.

Pratinav Antil. Legless before wicket: The BBC’s first sports editor’s memoir of immigrant experience. Review of: THANK YOU MR CROMBIE: Lessons in guilt and gratitude to the British / Mihir Bose.

In Brief Review of: THERE’S ALWAYS THIS YEAR: on basketball and ascension / Hanif Abdurraqib.

In Brief Review of: HEADSHOT / Rita Bullwinkel. ("A novelistic take on amateur boxing and sports psychology")

Mike Jakeman. Test of character: An Ashes series that condemned England to decades of defeat. Review of: RICHIE BENAUD’S BLUE SUEDE SHOES: The story of an Ashes classic / David Kynaston and Harry Ricketts. (Cricket stuff)

Recent books discussed in The New Yorker:

Jessica Winter. 05/29/2024: The Trials and Tribulations of the Boymom. Review of: BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity / Ruth Whippman.

Garth Greenwell. 05/28/2024: A Brilliant Neglected Novel About the Search for a Lost Older Lover. "Nocturnes for the King of Naples, by Edmund White, stands outside current fashions, with its refined pleasures and its nuanced accounts of gay lives."

NYRB Online June 24 2024

Literature & Literacy

Jonathan Lethem. Grand Poobah of the Antigrandiose. Review of: Charles Portis: Collected Works /
edited by Jay Jennings (Library of America) -- Haunted Man’s Report: Reading Charles Portis / Robert Cochran.

Catherine Nicholson. Livelier Than the Living. Review of: A Marvelous Solitude: The Art of Reading in Early Modern Europe / Lina Bolzoni, translated from the Italian by Sylvia Greenup -- Untold Futures: Time and Literary Culture in Renaissance England / J.K. Barret.

Addendum. Kathryn Hughes. 06/04/2024: Written by Paw. (Essay adapted from Catland: Louis Wain and the Great Cat Mania / Kathryn Hughes)*

*There's an interesting associated (in my mind) article in The Atlantic: Katherine J. Wu. 06/06/2024: Animal Behavior’s Biggest Taboo Is Softening: Anthropomorphism, long considered a cardinal sin among researchers, is making a slow comeback.

Arts & Architecture

Brian Seibert. ‘You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught.’ Review of: Oscar Hammerstein II and the Invention of the Musical / Laurie Winer -- Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers / Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green.

Mark Filler. Up on the Roof. Review of: Machine à Amuser: The Life and Death of the Beistegui Penthouse Apartment / Wim van den Bergh.

Natural History

Tim Flannery. No Place Like Home. Review of: Origin Africa: A Natural History / Jonathan Kingdon.

Religion

Meghan O'Gieblyn. Leaving the Fold. Review of: Cloistered: My Years as a Nun / Catherine Coldstream.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

Mark Lilla. The Tower and the Sewer. Review of: Why Liberalism Failed / Patrick J. Deneen, with a foreword by James Davison Hunter and John M. Owen IV -- From Fire, by Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith / Sohrab Ahmari -- Tyranny, Inc.: How Private Power Crushed American Liberty—and What to Do About It / Sohrab Ahmari -- Common Good Constitutionalism: Recovering the Classical Legal Tradition / Adrian Vermeule -- Regime Change: Toward a Postliberal Future / Patrick J. Deneen.

Christine Henneberg. ‘I Still Would Have Had That Abortion.’ Review of: Undue Burden: Life-and-Death Decisions in Post-Roe America / Shefali Luthra.

Gyan Prakash. A ‘Life of Contradictions.’ Review of: A Part Apart: The Life and Thought of B.R. Ambedkar / Ashok Gopal -- B.R. Ambedkar: The Man Who Gave Hope to India’s Dispossessed / Shashi Tharoor -- The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction / Scott R. Stroud.

Linda Greenhouse. The Constant Presence of Fear. Review of: Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him / Laurence Ralph.

Adom Gatachew. Black Atlantics. Review of: Floating in a Most Peculiar Way / Louis Chude-Sokei -- The Last “Darky”: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora / Louis Chude-Sokei -- The Sound of Culture: Diaspora and Black Technopoetics / Louis Chude-Sokei.

Francisco Cantú. A Legacy of Plunder. Review article of works by Michael John Witgen: Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America -- An Infinity of Nations: How the Native New World Shaped Early North America.

Zehnya Bruno. Russian Decency. Review of: I Love Russia: Reporting from a Lost Country / Elena Kostyuchenko, translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich and Ilona Yazhbin Chavasse.

Ed Vulliamy & Pascal Vannier. D-Day’s Forgotten Victims Speak Out. Review of: L’Enfer du Havre, 1940–1944 / Julien Guillemard -- Le Havre 44: À feu et à sang / Eddy Florentin -- Forgotten Blitzes: France and Italy Under Allied Air Attack, 1940–1945 / Claudia Baldoli and Andrew Knapp -- Les Français sous les bombes alliées, 1940–1945 / Andrew Knapp -- Les Civils dans la bataille de Normandie / Françoise Passera and Jean Quellien -- Le Calvados dans la guerre, 1939–1945 / Jean Quellien -- Les Normands dans la guerre: Le temps des épreuves, 1939–1945 / Françoise Passera and Jean Quellien -- Villes normandes sous les bombes (Juin 1944) / edited by Michel Boivin, Gérard Bourdin, and Jean Quellien -- Bombardements 1944: Le Havre, Normandie, France, Europe / edited by John Barzman, Corinne Bouillot, and Andrew Knapp.

Jeremy Black. The Critic (UK), 06/01/2024: Murders for June. Beach reads for crime fiction buffs.

Clancy Martin. NYT, 05/29/2024: The Author Started as a Skeptic. He Came Out a Believer in Pure Evil. Review of: THE DEVIL’S BEST TRICK: How the Face of Evil Disappeared / Randall Sullivan.

Recent books in The New Yorker:

Idrees Kahloon. 05/27/2024: The World Keeps Getting Richer. Some People Are Worried. Review of: Growth: A History and a Reckoning / Daniel Susskind, with reference to The Rise and Fall of American Growth: The U.S. Standard of Living since the Civil War / Robert J. Gordon.

Anna Russell. 05/30/2024: “Matrescence,” and the Transformations of Motherhood. Review of: Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood / Lucy Jones, with reference to her Losing Eden: Our Fundamental Need for the Natural World and Its Ability to Heal Body and Soul.

Washington Post (WaPo) book items:

Laurie Hertzel. 05/31/2024: What one man learned living alone in the wilderness for 40 years. Review of: The Way of the Hermit: My Incredible 40 Years Living in the Wilderness / Ken Smith with Will Millard.

Michael Dirda. 05/31/2024: 7 ways to take your book-reading experience to the next level. Not sure I want to go there, tbh.

Heather Hewitt. 06/01/2024: Understanding the real impact of abortion bans, one woman at a time. Review of: Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America / Shefali Luthra.

Paul Berman. Quillette, 06/03/2024: Unbowed but Gravely Wounded. Regarding Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder / Salman Rushdie.

Isaac Butler. The Atlantic, 06/04/2024: WHEN THE CULTURE WARS CAME FOR THE THEATER. Review of: The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War / James Shapiro, with reference also to: The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters / Frances Stonor Saunders & Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress, and the Place of the Visual Artist in America / Michael Brenson.

Judith Shulevitz. The Atlantic, 06/04/2024: Stop Trying to Understand Kafka. Thoughts on Mark Harman's Harvard University Press translation of Kafka's Selected Stories.

Two from The New Yorker

Hua Hsu. 06/04/2024: A Portrait of Japanese America, in the Shadow of the Camps. Review of: The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration / Frank Abe & Floyd Cheung, editors.

Richard Brody. 06/04/2024: Could Elaine May Finally Be Getting Her Due? Review of: Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius / Carrie Courogen.

Bryan Vandyke. The Millions, 06/05/2024: Rise of the Ghost Machines. (Essay on AI & literature)

Brandon Kreitler. The Point, 05/23/2024: Doom Scroll: Jorie Graham’s late style.

Mary Gaitskill. UnHerd, 05/30/2024: Don’t be terrified of Pale Fire: Nabokov's masterpiece has a complex but huge heart. Touchstone link: Pale Fire / Vladimir Nabokov.

Paul Theroux, interviewer George Salis. CollideScope, 05/30/2024: The Grit That Makes the Pearl: An Interview With Paul Theroux.

TLS June 7, 2024|No. 6323

Featured

Peter Parker. A tragedy of imperialism: E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India at 100 (Essay)

Julian Baggini. Philosophy in the wild: How reality escapes our understanding. Review of: THE WEIRDNESS OF THE WORLD / Eric Schwitzgebel.

Hal Jensen. Too much past in the present: A fledgling relationship seen through multiple gazes. Review of: THE IN-BETWEEN / Christos Tsiolkas.

Claire Wilcox. Stitches in time: Sewing stories from oral history and autobiography. Review of: THE POINT OF THE NEEDLE: Why sewing matters / Barbara Burman.

Literature

Cedric Van Dijck. Happy returns?: E. M. Forster’s centenaries. (Essay)

Andrew Epstein. The other Emerson: Hokey mystic or hard-headed abolitionist and sceptic? Review of: GLAD TO THE BRINK OF FEAR: A portrait of Ralph Waldo Emerson / James Marcus.

Douglas Field. Liberation and literacy: How Black Americans found their voice. Review of: THE BLACK BOX: Writing the race / Henry Louis Gates.

Heather Cass White. On a mission: American sonnets commissioned by the Holy Ghost. Review of: GOD’S SCRIVENER: The madness and meaning of Jones Very / Clark Davis.

Lucasta Miller. Life in the form of a circle: A psychoanalyst’s struggle to find self-insight. Review of: SCAFFOLDING / Lauren Elkin.

James Cahill. The scent of flowers: A novel of gay love, grief and memory. Review of: CINEMA LOVE / Jiaming Tang.

In Brief Review of: Art / Peter Carty. ("A messy, angry chronicling of the east London art scene")

In Brief Review of: TWO HOURS / Alba Arikha.

In Brief Review of: NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES / Edmund White (reissue of the 1978 novel)

Arts

James Hall. Leaning in: Michelangelo’s perfection of the embodied mind. Review of the catalog & exhibition of the same name: MICHELANGELO: The last decades / Sarah Vowles and Grant Lewis, exhibition, British Museum, until July 28.

In Brief Review of: PARACHUTE WOMEN: Marianne Faithfull, Marsha Hunt, Bianca Jagger, Anita Pallenberg, and the women behind the Rolling Stones / Elizabeth Winder.

In Brief Review of: KAFKA: A manga adaptation / Nishioka Kyōdai; translated by David Yang.

Philosophy & Psychology

Regina Rini. Riding to the rescue: How nature recruits first responders. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: BREAKTHROUGH: How to think like a scientist, learn how to fail and embrace the unknown / Camilla Pang.

In Brief Review of: CYBERNETICS AND THE ORIGIN OF INFORMATION / Raymond Ruyer; translated by Amélie Berger-Soraruff, Andrew Iliadis, Daniel W. Smith and Ashley Woodward.

Religion

Euan Cameron. Another Jesus: Laments for the lost variety of early Christian thought. Review of: HERESY: Jesus Christ and the other sons of God / Catherine Nixey -- RESISTANCE TO CHRISTIANITY: A chronological encyclopaedia of heresy from the beginning to the eighteenth century / Raoul Vaneigem; translated by Bill Brown.

Catherine Conybear. God and emperor: Constantine and the making of Christian unity. Review of: CHRISTIANITY, PHILOSOPHY, AND ROMAN POWER: Constantine, Julian, and the bishops on exegesis and empire / Lea Niccolai -- THE CHRISTIANIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE IN LATE ANTIQUITY: Intellectual and material transformations / Mark Letteney.

History, Geography, Politics, Society, & Culture

Bronwen Everill. In its own right: Africa at the heart of world history. Review of: AN AFRICAN HISTORY OF AFRICA: From the Dawn of Humanity to Independence / Zeinab Badawi.

Felipe Fernández-Armesto. Wanderlust: What makes explorers seek out the unfamiliar? Review of: DARING FRENCH EXPLORATIONS: Trailblazing adventures around the world: 1714–1854 / Hubert Sagnières -- TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH: How ancient conquerors, explorers, scientists, and traders connected the world / Raimund J. Schulz; translated by Robert Savage.

Alev Adil. Breaching the city walls: A portrait of Istanbul. Review of: TO THE CITY: Life and death along the ancient walls of Istanbul / Alexander Christie-Miller.

Ben Rogers. Us and them: On the borders we have created. Review of: INVISIBLE LINES: Boundaries and belts that define the world / Maxim Samson -- A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 47 BORDERS: The stories behind the lines on our maps / Jonn Elledge -- THE PICNIC: An escape to freedom and the collapse of the Iron Curtain / Matthew Longo.

Christina Thompson. Cook’s last tour: How death caught up with the explorer. Review of: THE WIDE WIDE SEA: Imperial Ambition, First Contact and the Fateful Final Voyage of Captain James Cook (English subtitle: The final, fatal adventure of Captain James Cook) / Hampton Sides.

Roger D. Launius. The one that fell to earth: America’s space shuttle disaster. Review of: CHALLENGER: A true story of heroism and disaster on the edge of space / Adam Higginbotham.

John Samuel Harpham. Looking homeward: The last slave ship to reach America. Review of: The Survivors of the Clotilda: The Lost Stories of the Last Captives of the American Slave Trade / Hannah Durkin. (TLS has title proper The Survivors; unclear whether this is an error or the title used in the English edition)

Michael Taylor. Selling slavery: An apologist for the plantations of Jamaica. Review of: LUCKY VALLEY: Edward Long and the history of racial capitalism / Catherine Hall.

Recent book news & notes from NYT:

Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter. 06/05/2024: Costco Plans to Stop Selling Books Year-Round. "Beginning in January 2025, the company will stop stocking books regularly, and will instead sell them only during the holiday shopping period, from September through December. During the rest of the year, some books may be sold at Costco stores from time to time, but not in a consistent manner, according to the executives, who spoke anonymously in order to discuss a confidential business matter that has not yet been publicly announced."

Jennifer Szalai. 06/05/2024: How America Turned Stories Into Weapons of War. Review of: STORIES ARE WEAPONS: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind / Annalee Newitz.

McCay Coppins. The Atlantic, 06/05/2024: The Most Consequential TV Show in History. Review of Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass / Ramin Setoodeh.

Catching up on recent LARB:

Mattia Ravasi. 06/06/2024: The Most Irreducible of Human Materials. Review of: After World / Debbie Urbanski.

Claudia Casper. 06/04/2024: The Prehistory of Men and Babies. Review of: Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies / Sarah Blaffer Hrdy.

Jonathan Liebson. 06/04/2024: A Living Tableau of Multiculturalism. Review of: Impossible City: Paris in the 21st Century / Simon Kuper.

Stephanie Schoellman. 05/23/2024: Here Be Monstrous Architects. Review of: Horror in Architecture: The Reanimated Edition / Joshua Comaroff and Ong Ker-Shing.

Evan Selinger. 05/31/2024: Keeping Humans in the Loop. Review of: The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now / Hilke Schellmann.

Kenneth Dillon. 05/29/2024: Sustained, Energetic Engagement with the Object. Review of: All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess / Becca Rothfeld. (According to the review, Rothfeld is the new non-fiction reviewer for WaPo)

Matt Ray and Matthew Wranovics. 05/27/2024: California Communism and Its Afterlives. Review of: San Francisco Reds: Communists in the Bay Area, 1919–1958 / Robert W. Cherny.

Judi Dench & Brendan O'Hea, interviewer Lenny Picker. The Millions, 06/06/2024: Two Shakespeareans Take Stock. Regarding their new book: Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent.

Jake Cline. WaPo, 06/06/2024: Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma sends readers into battle. Review of: The Road to the Country: A Novel / Chigozie Obioma. "a harrowing novel about the Nigerian Civil War."

Two recent books on trans theory & feminism:

Doriane Lambelet Coleman. Quillette, 06/05/2024: The Campaign to Erase Biological Sex. Excerpt from her book On Sex and Gender: A Commonsense Approach.

Victoria Smith. The Critic (UK), 06/05/2024: This is what feminism looks like. Review of: The Women Who Wouldn’t Wheesht / Lucy Brown and Susan Dalgety (eds) & Sexed / Susanna Rustin.

Lucy Knight. The Guardian, 06/06/2024: Baillie Gifford cancels all remaining sponsorships of literary festivals: Cambridge, Stratford, Wigtown and Henley festivals say firm ended deals after protests over its links to Israel and fossil fuels.

H. Bruce Franklin, 1934-2024

Trip Gabriel. NYT, 06/07/2024: H. Bruce Franklin, Scholar Who Embraced Radical Politics, Dies at 90. "A cultural historian, he was fired by Stanford University in 1972 over an anti-Vietnam War speech that became a cause célèbre of academic freedom."

"His dismissal was the first firing of a tenured professor at a major university since the McCarthy era, and it set off a national debate about academic freedom. Alan M. Dershowitz, then a young civil liberties lawyer spending a year at Stanford, argued that Dr. Franklin’s speech to students was protected by the First Amendment. The Nobel Prize-winning chemist Linus Pauling denounced what he called “a great blow to freedom of speech.” (After a blacklisting period, he eventually was hired by Rutgers, eventually retiring as John Cotton Dana professor of English and American studies).

My introduction to his work was via his book on Melville (The Wake of the Gods: Melville's Mythology); he did seem to have a doctrinaire approach that I couldn't follow. The obituary covers his wide interests, from left politics (The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings, 1905-52 (editor & intro)) to science fiction (Robert A. Heinlein: America as Science Fiction) & fishes (The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America). See the bibliography on his LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/franklinhbruce

T.D. Allman, 1944-2024

Adam Nossiter. NYT, 06/06/2024, rev 06/07: T.D. Allman, Assertive Globe-Trotting Journalist, Dies at 79.

He has a couple of books on Florida (see https://www.librarything.com/author/allmantd) to his credit, but I believe he is best known for his journalistic byline, reporting from all over the world.

D.W. White. 3:AM Magazine, 06/06/2024: The Last Philosopher: Rachel Cusk and the Transgressions of Art. Review of: Parade / Rachel Cusk.

Mike Duncan. New Republic, 06/06/2024: In the Ruins of Edward Gibbon’s Masterpiece. "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is an enduring work—just not of history."

Charles Emmerson. LARB, 06/07/2024: The Trouble with the French Republic: On Two Recent Books About French Colonization. Review of: Fixing France: How to Repair a Broken Republic / Nabila Ramdani -- Colonisations: Notre histoire / Pierre Singaravélou.

James Folta. LitHub, 06/04/2024: Bookmarks: the definitive ranking.

Merve Emre. New Yorker, 06/03/2024: What Does Freud Still Have to Teach Us? Review of: Mortal Secrets: Freud, Vienna, and the Discovery of the Modern Mind / Frank Tallis.

Two essays, one from 2009, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of 1984:

James Wood. New Yorker, 04/06/2009: George Orwell’s Revolutions. "A Puritan radical, he yearned for an uncorrupted, pre-modern England."

Christopher J. Snowdon. Quillette, 06/06/2024: George Orwell’s Error.

Let's make it 3:

Louis Menand. New Yorker, 06/08/2024: “1984” at Seventy: Why We Still Read Orwell’s Book of Prophecy.

Jürgen Moltmann, 1926-2024

Clay Risen. NYT, 06/08/2024: Jürgen Moltmann, Theologian Who Confronted Auschwitz, Is Dead at 98.

"Dr. Moltmann, who spent most of his career as a professor at the University of Tübingen, played a central role in Christianity’s struggle to come to grips with the Nazi era, insisting that any established set of beliefs had to confront the theological implications of Auschwitz.

"Though his work ranged widely, including ecological and feminist theology, he specialized in the branch of theology known as eschatology, which is concerned with the disposition of the soul after death and the end of the world, when Christians believe that Christ will return to earth."

Author of Theology of Hope & The Crucified God. His LT page: https://www.librarything.com/author/moltmannjurgen

Rebecca Mead. New Yorker, 06/03/2024: The Man Who Reinvented the Cat. Review of: Catland / Kathryn Hughes.

Daisy Dunn. BBC Culture, 06/11/2024: . 'A woman should cast off her shame together with her clothes': What women in ancient times really thought about sex. The author on her new book, The Missing Thread: A New History of the Ancient World Through the Women Who Shaped It (just published in the UK, to be published July 30 in the US).

Christine Smallwood. Yale Review, 06/10/2024: A Reviewer’s Life: The material constraints of writing criticism today.

TLS June 14, 2024|No. 6324

Featured

George Prochnik. The Sphinx complex: Solving the riddle of Sigmund Freud’s attitude to death. Review of: MORTAL SECRETS: Freud, Vienna and the discovery of the modern mind / Frank Tallis.

James Campbell. Best Western?: A controversial novel of the American frontier. Review of: ANGLE OF REPOSE / Wallace Stegner.

Nat Segnit. A scream heard behind the glass: The logical terminus of Rachel Cusk’s journey in selfhood. Review of: PARADE / Rachel Cusk.

Andrew Irwin. A peck of pickled peppers: Stopping good food going to waste. Review of: LEFTOVERS: A history of food waste and preservation / Eleanor Barnett.

Literature

Sarah Crown. This other Eden: A remarkable debut of societal collapse and the search for refuge. Review of: BRIEFLY, VERY BEAUTIFUL / Roz Dineen.

Jude Cook. The foster parent trap: A callow young man is forced to grow up. Review of: GOING HOME / Tom Lamont.

Stephanie Sy-Quia. Kidnapped: The author’s abduction as a child remembered in poetry and a memoir. Review of: THE MANY HUNDREDS OF THE SCENT: Poems / Shane McCrae -- PULLING THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN: A memoir of a kidnapping / Shane McCrae.

William Wooten. I believe in fun: Two collections by poets ageing disgracefully. Review of: GODDAMNED SELECTED POEMS / Stanley Moss -- SO WHAT: Poems / Frederick Seidel.

Josh Weeks. Life as a poem: A literary journey to Latin America and back. Review of: AMBASSADOR OF NOWHERE: A Latin American pilgrimage / Richard Gwyn.

Ben Hutchinson. The author as adjective: Our relationship with Kafka, a century after his death. Review of: KAFKA: Making of an icon / Ritchie Robertson, editor, catalog of the exhibition of the same name, Weston Library, Bodleian, Oxford, until October 27.

Craig Raine. The critic as artist: In search of a rare talent. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: CLARICE LISPECTOR: From Brazil to the world / Earl E. Fitz.

In Brief Review of: BY THE RIVER: Essays from the water’s edge / Various contributors.

In Brief Review of: UNWORDS / Andrew Gallix.

In Brief Review of: THE SINGULARITY / Balsam Karam. (Novel)

In Brief Review of: WAY FAR AWAY / Evelio Rosero; translated by Victor Meadowcroft and Anne McLean. (Novel)

Arts

Harrison Stetler. Anti-human?: Jean Genet’s notorious, outrageous play revived. Review of Jean Genet's play LES PARAVENTS, Odéon, Théâtre de l’Europe, Paris, until June 19.

In Brief Review of: ALIX CLEO ROUBAUD: A portrait in fragments / Hélène Giannecchini; translated by Thea Petrou.

Science & Technology

Joanna Bagniewska. Go to work on an egg: Why life on Earth is so diverse. Review of: INFINITE LIFE: A revolutionary story of eggs, evolution and life on earth / Jules Howard.

George Marshall. The heat is on: Rising temperatures will lead to a rising tide of aggression. Review of: THE WEIGHT OF NATURE: How a changing climate changes our minds, brains and bodies / Clayton Aldern.

History, Politics, Society, & Culture

T. Correy Brennan. Among the ruins: Bringing the ancient city back to life. Review of: ANCIENT ROME IN FIFTY MONUMENTS / Paul Roberts.

Jonathan Williams. Coining it: ‘Time capsules’ of Roman history. Review of: MONETA: A history of ancient Rome in twelve coins / Gareth Harney.

Jacqueline Bannerjee. Death becomes them: The mourning rituals of the Victorians. Review of: RITES OF PASSAGE: Death and mourning in Victorian Britain / Judith Flanders.

Adam Hochschild. Cover-up: An atrocity committed by US troops in the Philippines. Review of: MASSACRE IN THE CLOUDS: An American atrocity and the erasure of history / Kim A. Wagner.

David Abulafia. Divided island: Cyprus from prehistoric dwarf elephants to Ayia Napa nightclubs. Review of: CYPRIA: A journey to the heart of the Mediterranean / Alex Christofi.

Lawrence Douglas. The comfort of obedience: Questions posed by the trial of a seventeen-year-old guard at Stutthof concentration camp. Review of: FINAL VERDICT: A Holocaust trial in the twenty-first century / Tobias Buck.

Libby Purves. Twin peaks: The beautiful, intelligent sisters who ‘walked alongside revered mid-century thinkers.’ Review of: THE QUALITY OF LOVE: Twin sisters at the heart of the century / Ariane Bankes (biography of Celia & Mamaine Paget)

Tom Clark. Starmer’s machine politics: Is a blend of progressive liberalism and ethical socialism possible? Review of: THIS TIME NO MISTAKES: How to remake Britain / Will Hutton.

In Brief Review of: THE CLEOPATRAS: The forgotten queens of Egypt Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones.

Lookin at you, New Yorker.

Ian Bogost. The Atlantic, 06/11/2024: The Mid-year Best-of List Is a Travesty: The worst idea of 2024 so far.

New Yorker recent books round-up:

Rachel Riederer. 06/12/2024: A New Book About Plant Intelligence Highlights the Messiness of Scientific Change. Review of: The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth / Zoë Schlanger.

Katy Waldman. 06/10/2024: What COVID Did to Fiction. Focusing on: Our Country Friends / Gary Shteyngart -- The Limits: a novel / Nell Freudenberger -- The Vulnerables / Sigrid Nunez -- The Sentence / Louise Erdrich -- Blue Ruin / Hari Kunzru -- Day / Michael Cunningham.

Daniel Immerwahr. 06/10/2024: When the C.I.A. Messes Up: Its agents are often depicted as malevolent puppet masters—or as bumbling idiots. The truth is even less comforting. Review of: The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq / Steve Coll -- The CIA: An Imperial History / Hugh Willford -- The President’s Kill List: Assassination and US Foreign Policy since 1945 / Luca Trenta (not yet published?) -- also citing 2018's Covert Regime Change: America's Secret Cold War / Lindsey A. O'Rourke.

Clare Pooley. LitHub, 06/12/2024: Kill the Pet, Kill the Book’s Rating: The Perils of Writing Dogs in Fiction.

Jennifer Szalai. NYT, 06/12/2024: The 1990s Were Weirder Than You Think. We’re Feeling the Effects. Review of: WHEN THE CLOCK BROKE: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s / John Ganz.

"Ann Powers explores the romantic ennui, class consciousness, spiritual striving and occasional narcissism that characterize the music legend’s work."

Elizabeth Nelson. WaPo, 06/11/2024: Making sense of Joni Mitchell’s genius, and her missteps. Review of: Traveling: On the Path of Joni Mitchell / Ann Powers.

LARB round-up:

Charlie Taylor. 06/12/2024: The Moral Delusions of Patriotism. Review of: War / Louis-Ferdinand Céline; translated by Charlotte Mandel.

Josh Cohen. 06/13/2024: Quiet Please. Review of: Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity / Byung-Chul Han -- Exhausted: An A–Z for the Weary / Anna Katharina Schaffner.

Juno Richards. 06/10/2024: Trans Panic Otherwise. Review of: A Short History of Trans Misogyny / Jules Gill-Peterson.

Hugh Wilford. crimereads.com, 06/13/2024: HOW RUDYARD KIPLING'S 'KIM' HELPED CREATE MODERN ESPIONAGE. From Wilford's The CIA: An Imperial History, reviewed by Daniel Immerwahr >179 featherbear:

Janet Vertesi. Public Books, 06/13/2024: THE ENCYCLOPEDIA PROJECT, OR HOW TO KNOW IN THE AGE OF AI.

Jay Kaspian Kang. New Yorker, 06/14/2024: We’re All Tiger Moms Now. "Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother prompted controversy thirteen years ago, but, among the upper middle class, variations on her parenting style have proliferated."

Recent reviews from The Critic (UK):

Sophie Nicolls. 06/14/2024: The whores and mores of Hanoverian London. Review of: Libertine London: Sex in the Eighteenth-Century Metropolis / Julie Peakman.

Fred Skulthorp. 06/11/2024: Making a miserable meal of mythbusting. Review of: England: Seven Myths That Changed a Country — and How to Set Them Straight / Tom Baldwin and Marc Stears.

Richard Hopton. 06/13/2024: Beyond the boundary. Review of: Echoing Greens: How Cricket Shaped the English Imagination / Brendan Cooper.

Graham Stewart. 06/09/2024: Burmese days: for good and ill. Review of: Maymyo Days: Forgotten Lives of a Burma Hill Station / Stephen Simmons.

Claire Dederer, interviewer Nick Hilden. The Millions, 06/12/2024: “Her Job Is to Show How People Live”: Claire Dederer on Laurie Colwin.

Anne Stevenson-Yang, interviewer Sophie Roell. fivebooks.com, 06/14/2024: Books to Change the Way You Think About China. Stevenson-Yang is the author of Wild Ride: A Short History of the Opening and Closing of the Chinese Economy.

She comments on: The Search for Modern China / Jonathan Spence (now in 3rd ed) -- Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958-1962 / Yang Jisheng -- Red Capitalism: The Fragile Financial Foundation of China's Extraordinary Rise / Carl E. Walter & Fraser J.T. Howie -- Invisible China: How the Urban-Rural Divide Threatens China’s Rise / Scott Rozelle & Natalie Hell -- Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State / Yasheng Huang.

Recent books reviewed in The Washington Post (WaPo):

Ron Charles. 06/14/2024: How ‘The Apprentice’ made Donald Trump president. Review of: Apprentice in Wonderland: How Donald Trump and Mark Burnett Took America Through the Looking Glass / Ramin Setoodeh (to be pub 06/18).

Hilary Davidson. 06/10/2024: The improbable rise of three women who helped transform French fashion. Review of: Liberty Equality Fashion: The Women Who Styled the French Revolution / Anne Higonnet. A biography of Juliette Récamier, Térézia Tallien and Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie (who became Joséphine Bonaparte).

W. Ralph Eubanks. 06/13/2024: ‘The Great River’ explores the beauty and power of the Mississippi. Review of: The Great River: The Making and Unmaking of the Mississippi / Boyce Upholt.

Books in The New Yorker:

Hua Hsu. 06/16/2024: Should We Expect More from Dads? Review of: Father Time: A Natural History of Men and Babies / Sarah Blaffer Hrdy -- Attachments: Essays on Fatherhood and Other Performances / Lucas Mann.

Elizabeth Kolbert. 06/10/2024: Should We Kill Some Wild Creatures to Protect Others?. Review of: Cull of the Wild: Killing in the Name of Conservation / Hugh Warwick -- Hedgehogs, Killing, and Kindness: The Contradictions of Care in Conservation Practice / Laura McLauchlan.

Sunday book reviews from The Critic (UK):

James Stevens Curl. 06/16/2024: The stories of a cemetery. Review of: Buried but not quite dead: forgotten writers of the Père-Lachaise / Anthony Daniels (a review that fails to cite the book under review, by the way).

Daniel Johnson. 06/16/2024: A labour of love. Review of: The Muse of History: The Ancient Greeks From the Enlightenment to the Present / Oswyn Murray.

Michael Scott Moore. LARB, 06/17/2024: Warlike Dreams of the Primate. Review of: Blue Lard / Vladimir Sorokin; trans. Max Lawton (New York Review Classics) -- Red Pyramid: Selected Stories / Vladimir Sorokin; trans. Max Lawton (New York Review Classics).

Alan Jacobs. Harper's, 06/18/2024 (July 2024 print issue): Yesterday’s Men: The death of the mythical method. On Anatomy of Criticism: four essays / Northrop Frye -- The New Science / Giambattista Vico. Translated from the Italian by Jason Taylor and Robert C. Miner -- The Hero with a Thousand Faces / Joseph Campbell.

TLS June 21, 2024|No. 6325

Featured

Summer books 2024: Twenty-five TLS writers share their summer reading.

Daniel A. Bell. Can liberalism move the soul?: Giving new life to an under-appreciated part of John Rawls’s philosophy. Review of: LIBERALISM AS A WAY OF LIFE / Alexandre Lefebvre -- THE POLITICAL THOUGHT OF DAVID HUME: The origins of liberalism and the modern political imagination / Aaron Alexander Zubia.

Lisa Hilton. Artistic licence: The relationship between ‘loveliness and lucre.’ Review of: ALL THAT GLITTERS: A story of friendship, fraud and fine art / Orlando Whitfield -- GET THE PICTURE: A mind-bending journey among the inspired artists and obsessive art fiends who taught me how to see / Bianca Bosker.

Zachary Leader. Christopher’s kind: Isherwood’s characters grew out of real-life experience. Review of: CHRISTOPHER ISHERWOOD INSIDE OUT / Katherine Bucknell.

Literature

Gail Trimble. ‘I shall be read and I shall live’: The appeal of Ovid’s universal epic. Review of: A COMMENTARY ON OVID’S METAMORPHOSES (3v) / Alessandro Barchiesi, Gianpiero Rosati, E. J. Kenney, Joseph D. Reed and Philip Hardie, editors.

Irina Dumitrescu. Tales for all time: Literary realism, from ‘Beowulf’ to Borges. (Essay)

Houman Barekat. Another great game: An odd couple set off in search of an African footballing prodigy. Review of: GODWIN: a novel / Joseph O'Neill.

Randy Boyagada. Dreams of peaches: The picaresque journey of a ‘medical marvel’ in 1830s Canada. Review of: THE VOYAGEUR / Paul Carlucci.

Maya Jaggi. Not his war: A young man is drawn into one of the twentieth century’s deadliest conflicts. Review of: THE ROAD TO THE COUNTRY: a novel / Chigozie Obioma.

In Brief Review of: SHAKESPEARE ON THE ECOLOGICAL SURFACE / Liz Oakley-Brown.

In Brief Review of: AND THEN? AND THEN? WHAT ELSE?: A writer’s life / Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket.

Arts

Sarah Watling. Three into two won’t go: A story of collaboration and artistic ruthlessness. Review of the exhibition DOROTHY HEPWORTH AND PATRICIA PREECE: An untold story, Charleston (Gallery), Lewes, Sussex and the book: THE SECRET ART OF DOROTHY HEPWORTH AKA PATRICIA PREECE / Denys J. Wilcox.

In Brief Review of: THE RUSSIAN DETECTIVE / Carol Adlam (graphic novel that "reconstructs a forgotten Russian novella of 1876, Three Courts, or Murder at the Ball Its author, S. A. Panov")

Political Philosophy

Hugo Drochon. After God: The search for a society in which no one need be afraid. Review of: LIBERALISM AGAINST ITSELF: Cold War intellectuals and the making of our times / Samuel Moyn -- FREEDOM FROM FEAR: An incomplete history of liberalism / Alan Kahan.

Religion & Society

Laurie Maguire. Parish gossip: English church history in miniature. Review of: OLD PARISH LIFE: A guide for the curious / Justin Lovill.

History, Politics, & Society

Emily Hauser. On the distaff side: A history of antiquity written through women. Review of: THE MISSING THREAD: A new history of the ancient world through the women who shaped it / Daisy Dunn.

Peter Stothard. Streets ahead: The Roman road network down the ages. Review of: THE ROADS TO ROME: A history (US subtitle: A History of Imperial Expansion) / Catherine Fletcher.

Douglas Smith. Lion versus Bear: Commerce and antagonism between two very different nations. Review of: THE FIRST COLD WAR: Anglo-Russian relations in the 19th century / Barbara Emerson.

Luka Ivan Jukic. Prisoner of history: How the Serbian state emerged from the Ottoman Empire. Review of: SERBIA: A modern history / Marko Attila Hoare.

Amir-Hussein Radjy. Arab winter: The poisonous legacy of Nasser, Egypt’s nationalist dictator. Review of: WE ARE YOUR SOLDIERS: How Gamal Abdel Nasser remade the Arab world / Alex Rowell -- LOVED EGYPTIAN NIGHT: The meaning of the Arab Spring / Hugh Roberts -- EGYPT UNDER EL-SISI: A nation on the edge / Maged Mandour.

Lindsey Hilsum. This forgotten war: A letter from Omdurman, Sudan. (Essay)

Libby Purves. With bells on: The Esperance dancers, slum girls who transformed English country dancing. Review of: MARY NEAL AND THE SUFFRAGETTES WHO SAVED MORRIS DANCING / Kathryn Atherton.

In Brief Review of: LA CIVILIZACIÓN DE ESPAÑA / J.B. Trend; translated by Pere Bosch-Gimpera. (Translation of Trend's The Civilization of Spain (1944))

In Brief Review of: WHY VOTE?: How to make your voice heard in a world of broken politics / Jo Phillips and David Seymour.

In Brief Review of: KICKING OFF AROUND THE WORLD: 55 stories from when football met politics / Ramon Usall; translated by Luke Stobart.

Aditya Gandhi. Public Books, 06/18/2024: LAHIRI’S METAMORPHOSES. Review of: Roman Stories / Jhumpa Lahiri, translated from the Italian by the author with Todd Portnowitz.

Anna Russell. New Yorker, 06/17/2024: Andrew O’Hagan’s Bonfire of the Vanities. Review of: Caledonian Road: A Novel / Andrew O'Hagan.

Francesca Peacock. NYT, 06/18/2024: Glitz and Grimness Cross Paths on London’s ‘Caledonian Road.’

Clare McHugh. WaPo, 06/17/2024: ‘Caledonian Road’ is the novel everyone in England is talking about.

Books & politics, or, the politics of books:

Xochitl Gonzalez. Atlantic, 06/19/2024: The Schools That Are No Longer Teaching Kids to Read Books.

Dan Sinykin & Richard Jean So. 06/19/2024: HAS THE DEI BACKLASH COME FOR PUBLISHING?.

Jeff Shesol. NYT, 06/18/2024: What Can’t You Say These Days? Review of: THE INDISPENSABLE RIGHT: Free Speech in an Age of Rage / by Jonathan Turley.

Laura Kipnis. Wired, 06/18/2024: I Am Laura Kipnis-Bot, and I Will Make Reading Sexy and Tragic Again. I'm assuming this isn't a joke; apologies in advance if so.

Kaitlan Bui. Public Books, 06/19/2024: MODES OF WITNESS. Review of: The Singularity / Balsam Karam, translated from the Swedish by Saskia Vogel -- The Simple Art of Killing a Woman / Patrícia Melo, translated from the Portuguese by Sophie Lewis.

Adam Gopnick. New Yorker, 06/17/2024: How the Philosopher Charles Taylor Would Heal the Ills of Modernity. Review of: Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment / Charles Taylor.

Graham Elliott. The Critic (UK), 06/20/2024: The beginning and end of conversation. Review of: The Language Puzzle: How We Talked Our Way Out of the Stone Age / Steven Mithen.

Philip Kennicott. WaPo, 06/21/2024: The world’s largest Shakespeare collection finally has the home it deserves. "The Folger Shakespeare Library unveils a dramatic renovation, with new public galleries and a reenergized mission."

Jennifer Schuessler. NYT, 06/21/2024: The Folger Library Wants to Reintroduce You to Shakespeare.

Peter Sanford. Guardian, 06/16/2024: God’s Ghostwriters by Candida Moss review – did enslaved scribes write the New Testament? Review of: God's Ghostwriters: Enslaved Christians and the Making of the Bible / Candida Moss.

The experience of re-reading:

Elissa Gabbert. The Millions, 06/21/2024: Same River, Same Man. Excerpt from: Any Person Is the Only Self: Essays / Elissa Gabbert.

Two recent reviews from LARB:

Bryan A. Garner. 06/22/2024: Eloquent Contentiousness. Review of: Farnsworth’s Classical English Argument / Ward Farnsworth.

Carey Mott. 06/21/2024: House of Cards. Review of: Plastic Capitalism: Banks, Credit Cards, and the End of Financial Control / Sean H. Vanatta.

Jerome Groopman. New Yorker, 06/17/2024: Anthony Fauci’s Side of the Story. Review of: On Call: A Doctor's Journey in Public Service / Anthony Fauci.

Recent reviews from The Critic (UK):

Alexander Lee. 06/22/2024: Godfather of the Reformation. Review of: Lucas Cranach: From German Myth to Reformation / Jennifer Nelson. "Cranach’s impact on the Reformation would have been impossible without his earlier success as a secular artist."

Paul Goodman. 06/22/2024: Brexit: a portrait of political paralysis. Review of: No Way Out: Brexit: From the Backstop to Boris / Tim Shipman.

Haley Stewart. Plough, 06/17/2024: The Case for Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales.

Zach Gibson. LARB, 06/23/2024: A Cloth Woven of Stories Told: John Barth and the Literature of Rectification.

"After getting her start by self-publishing, Freida McFadden is now the fastest selling thriller writer in the United States."

Anita Gates. NYT, 06/22/2024: How a Boston Physician Conquered the Thriller Genre.

Frederick Crews, 1933-2024

Scott Veale. NYT, 06/24/2024: Frederick Crews, Withering Critic of Freud’s Legacy, Dies at 91.

Harrison Smith. WaPo, 06/28/2024: Frederick Crews, literary critic and steely Freud skeptic, dies at 91.

Author of: Freud: the making of an illusion -- The Pooh Perplex -- Out of my system: psychoanalysis, ideology, and critical method.

His LT page is https://www.librarything.com/author/crewsfrederickc

I recall reading a bound copy of his senior essay on Freud (it was negative) in the Sterling Library back in the day. Kids those days. Talk about "recovered memory," often critiqued by Prof Crews -- according to the WaPo article, his senior thesis was on the late novels of Henry James! I did read a bound copy of his senior paper, but apparently superimposed a recollection of the New York Review article.

Namwali Serpell. Yale Review, 06/10/2024: Critical Navel-Gazing: If criticism is in crisis, it’s not the critic’s problem.

"A new book conveys in dramatic detail what America’s Moses did to help abolish slavery. Another addresses the love of God and country that helped her do so."

Casey Cep. New Yorker, 06/24/2024: The Radical Faith of Harriet Tubman. Review of: Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War / Edda L. Fields-Black -- Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People / Tiya Miles.

Peter Salmon. Aeon, 06/25/2024: Paper trails: Husserl’s well-tended archive has given him a rich afterlife, while Nietzsche’s was distorted by his axe-grinding sister.

TLS June 28, 2024|No. 6326

Featured

Philip Ball. No solace in quantum: When the maths works, but no one knows exactly why. Review of: ESCAPE FROM SHADOW PHYSICS: The Quest to End the Dark Ages of Quantum Theory (UK subtitle: Quantum theory, quantum reality and the next scientific revolution) / Adam Forrest Kay.

Rachel Fraser. It’s no joke: How humour sneaks prejudices into our minds. Review of: DANGEROUS JOKES: How racism and sexism weaponize humor / Claire Horisk -- DOGWHISTLES AND FIGLEAVES: How manipulative language spreads racism and falsehood / Jennifer Mather Saul.

Claire Lowden. Succeeding with excess: Three literary critics assail the cult of minimalism. Review of: BAD TASTE: Or the politics of ugliness / Nathalie Olah -- NO JUDGMENT: Essays (UK title: No Judgement: On being critical / Lauren Oyler -- ALL THINGS ARE TOO SMALL: Essays in praise of excess / Becca Rothfeld.

Lucy Davies. ‘I wanted to be a storyteller’: A Cindy Sherman retrospective – and a rare interview with the artist herself. Review of the exhibition CINDY SHERMAN AT CYCLADIC: Early works, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, until November 4.

Literature

Irina Dumitrescu. Woman to woman: Breaking down stereotypes in medieval literature. Review of: WOMEN AND MEDIEVAL LITERARY CULTURE: From the early Middle Ages to the fifteenth century / Corinne Saunders and Diane Watt, editors.

Aaron Peck. A moral history of a generation: Sentimental Education was a misunderstood classic. Review of: SENTIMENTAL EDUCATION: The story of a young man / Gustave Flaubert; translated by Raymond N. MacKenzie.

Hetta Howes. Waste not: Medieval literature’s disdain for environmental vandalism. Review of: WASTE AND THE WASTERS: Poetry and ecosystemic thought in medieval England / Eleanor Johnson -- GENDER AND THE “NATURAL” ENVIRONMENT IN THE MIDDLE AGES / Theresa L. Tyers and Patricia Skinner, editors -- NATURE AND MEDIEVAL LITERATURE / Stephen Knight.

Julian Evans. The roar came forth: Dystopianism and disgust in the work of a Russian subversive. Review of: RED PYRAMID: Selected stories / Vladimir Sorokin; translated by Max Lawton -- BLUE LARD / Vladimir Sorokin; translated by Max Lawton.

Suzi Feay. Nana, not Mama: A maid is imprisoned following the death of a child in her care. Review of: CLEAN: a novel / Alia Trabucco Zerán; translated by Sophie Hughes.

Lorna Scott Fox. Carnality, viscosity and death: A terrifying road trip to an uncertain destination. Review of: NAPALM IN THE HEART / Pol Guasch; translated by Mara Faye Lethem.

Ian Sansom. Back to the futurologists: A brief history of forward-looking literature. (Essay)

In Brief Review of: LA VORÁGINE/TIERRA DE PROMISIÓN / José Eustasio Rivera.

In Brief Review of: WINTERBERG’S LAST JOURNEY / Jaroslav Rudiš; translated by Kris Best.

In Brief Review of: NOTICE (High Risk Books) / Heather Lewis.

In Brief Review of: LITERARY COTERIES AND THE IRISH WOMEN WRITERS’ CLUB (1933–1958) / Deirdre F. Brady.

Arts

J.E. Smyth. The frog and the princess: Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s volatile partnership. Review of: COCKTAILS WITH GEORGE AND MARTHA: Movies, Marriage, and the Making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (UK subtitle: Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and the making of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? / Philip Gefter -- ON ELIZABETH TAYLOR: An opinionated guide / Matthew Kennedy.

Franklin Nelson. Look back, move forward: Twenty-two Black artists pointing in different directions. Review of the catalog THE TIME IS ALWAYS NOW: artists reframe the Black figure Ekow Eshun, editor, & the exhibition of the same name, The Box, Plymouth, June 29 to September 29.

In Brief Review of: INTERACTING WITH COLOR: A practical guide to Josef Albers’s color experiments / Fritz Horstman.

Philosophy

Rhoda Feng. Be afraid, be very afraid: How gaslighters try to drive their targets crazy. Review of: ON GASLIGHTING / Kate Abramson.

Religion

Jonathan Benthall. The free market in faith: Viewing religion through the lens of economics. Review of: THE DIVINE ECONOMY: How religions compete for wealth, power, and people / Paul Seabright.

History, Politics, Society & Culture

Lucy McDiarmid. Shapeshifter: The irresistible story of an Irish idealist. Review of: BROKEN ARCHANGEL: The tempestuous lives of Roger Casement / Roland Philipps.

Stephen W. Sawyer. The city of long lunches: Putting the suburbs at the centre of modern Paris. Review of: IMPOSSIBLE CITY: Paris in the twenty-first century / Simon Kuper -- THE ZONE: An alternative history of Paris / Justinien Tribillon.

Hans Kundnani. Where did we go wrong?: A history of two turbulent decades. Review of: HAYWIRE: A political history of Britain since 2000 / Andrew Hindmoor.

In Brief Review of: NEGOTIATING WITH THE DEVIL: Inside the world of armed conflict mediation / Pierre Hazan; translated by Susan Mutti.

In Brief Review of: THE LADDER: Life lessons from women who scaled the heights (and dodged the snakes) / Cathy Newman.

Kevin Power. Dublin Review of Books, 06/2024: The Devouring Mind. Review of: Maestros & Monsters: Days & Nights with Susan Sontag & George Steiner / Robert Boyers.

Gabrielle Zevin, interview on By the book. NYT, 06/27/2024: Gabrielle Zevin Loves Edith Wharton, but Not ‘Ethan Frome.’ "Her own smash book Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is out in paperback." On my Kindle, but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

Sohrab Amari. Compact, 06/25/2024: The Bleak Genius of Michel Foucault. "Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the death of Michel Foucault."

Sarah Jones. New York Magazine Intelligencer, 06/27/2024: JD VANCE: Hillbilly Shapeshifter Re-reading J.D. Vance’s memoir. Namely, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis / J.D. Vance.

Elisa Gabbert. Atlantic, 06/26/2024: Five Books for People Who Really Love Books.

The list, in case you can't get in to read her commentary: U and I: a true story / Nicholson Baker -- Dayswork / Chris Bachelder & Jennifer Habel (where we learn Gabbert hasn't read Moby Dick) -- Written Lives / Javier Marais, trans. Margaret Jull Costa -- Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life / Yiyun Li -- Madness, Rack, and Honey / Mary Ruefle.

Kent Wascom. LitHub, 06/27/2024: New Mythologies of the Frontier: A Neo-Western Reading List.

Recent book reviews on Quillette:

Charlotte Allen. 06/26/2024: France’s Founding Fathers. Review of: House of Lilies: the dynasty that made Medieval France / Justine Firnhaber Baker. "In a new book, Justine Firnhaber-Baker tells the story of the Capetian dynasty (987–1328), whose rulers stitched a set of medieval duchies and counties into a single kingdom."

John Lloyd. 06/24/2024: Sin and Social Science. Review of: Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative / Glenn Loury. "Glenn Loury’s startlingly frank confessional memoir offers a complex portrait of a brilliant scholar and a profoundly flawed man."

LARB round-up:

Ieva Jusionyte. 06/27/2024: The Ethnography of Deep Suffering. Review of: The Way That Leads Among the Lost: Life, Death, and Hope in Mexico City’s Anexos / Angela Garcia.

Olivia Stowell. 06/26/2024: To Be Real. Review of: Cue the Sun!: The Invention of Reality TV / Emily Nussbaum.

Erick Verran. 06/25/2024: Necromancer. Review of: So What / Frederick Seidel.

Tom Zoellner. 06/24/2024: Cupcakes and Crotch Kicks. Review of: What Makes Sammy Jr. Run?: Classic Celebrity Journalism Volume 1 (1960s and 1970s) / Alex Belth

Tim Riley. 06/25/2024: Heartbreak Supernova. Review of: Miss May Does Not Exist: The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood’s Hidden Genius / Carrie Courogen.

Ian Buruma. New Yorker, 06/24/2024: How to Start a War Over Taiwan. Review of: The Boiling Moat: Urgent Steps to Defend Taiwan / Matt Pottinger, ed. (Amazon publ. date has July 1). (The weird subheading to the review seems to refer to other book reviews in the print edition)

Matthew Reisz. The Critic (UK), 06/28/2024: Can jokes in terrible taste ever be funny? Review of: Wisecracks: Humor and Morality in Everyday Life / David Shoemaker.

Chris Barsanti. The Millions, 06/28/2024: Things Got Weird: On the Early ‘90s Crack-Up. Review of: When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990 / John Ganz. With references to: America Last: The Right's Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators / Jacob Heilbrun -- Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980 / Rick Perlstein -- Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire: A 500-Year History / Kurt Andersen -- The Nineties: A Book / Chuck Klosterman -- Apocalypse Culture / Adam Parfrey, editor -- The Secret History / Donna Tartt.

Past & future books in WaPo:

Prudence Peiffer. 06/28/2024: These classic ’60s books shout from the shelves to be read again. "The National Book Awards will celebrate its 75th anniversary at this year’s ceremony, on Nov. 20. To mark the occasion, The Washington Post has collaborated with the administrator and presenter of the awards, the National Book Foundation, to commission a series of essays by National Book Award-honored authors who will consider (and reconsider), decade by decade, the books that were recognized and those that were overlooked ..." Peiffer refers to: In the Mecca / Gwendolyn Brooks, 1969 finalist -- Silent Spring / Rachel Carson, 1963 finalist -- The Death and Life of Great American Cities / Jane Jacobs, 1962 finalist -- Everything That Rises Must Converge / Flannery O'Connor, 1966 finalist -- To Kill a Mockingbird / Harper Lee, 1961 finalist -- Men in Dark Times / Hannah Arendt, 1969 finalist -- Against Interpretation / Susan Sontag, 1967 finalist -- A Peril and a Hope / Alice Kimball Smith, 1966 finalist

Becca Rothfeld. 06/26/2024: Ray Kurzweil is (still, somehow) excited about humans merging with machines. Review of: The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI / Ray Kurzweil.

Recent reviews from LARB:

Elizabeth S. Anker. 06/28/2024: A Reactionary Turn in Literary Studies. Review of: Criticism and Truth: On Method in Literary Studies / Jonathan Kramnick.

Sameer Pandya. 06/29/2024: How to Read Provincially. Review of: Provincials: Postcards from the Peripheries / Sumana Roy.