Dutton Review by George Yatchisin There’s that terrific anticipatory rush you can get when attending a classic movie in a theater and a beloved scene is about to happen. Think…
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Charming Young Man by Eliot Schrefer
HarperCollins Review by Walter Cummins Eliot Schrefer’s title character, his charming young man, Léon Delafosse, is a teenaged parvenu, a poor country boy sought after by fin de siècle Parisian…
I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai
Viking Review by Walter Cummins As a fan of mysteries, especially those with academic settings, I was drawn to the description of Rebecca Makkai’s latest title. It offered situations that…
The Rigor of Angels: Borges, Heisenberg, Kant, and the Ultimate Nature of Reality by William Egginton
Pantheon Review by Walter Cummins Emmanuel Kant relished fine wines and gourmet meals. Werner Heisenberg thought profoundly as he strolled through a park in winter. Jorge Luis Borges was devastated…
Misfit: Growing Up Awkward in the ’80s by Gary Gulman
Flatiron Review by George Yatchisin Gary Gulman is the kind of comedian you figured had a book in him, given his love of words and language that helped him craft…
The Fraud by Zadie Smith
Penguin Review by Walter Cummins Zadie Smith published a piece in The New Yorker about her efforts to ignore “the long shadow” of Charles Dickens (“On Killing Charles Dickens”) when…
Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility, edited by Rebecca Solnit & Thelma Young Lutunatabua
Haymarket Review by George Yatchisin It’s not lost on me that I’m reading Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility as I take a fuel-guzzling flight…
Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy by Jostein Gaarder, trans. by Paulette Møller
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Review by Walter Cummins Although Sophie’s World was first published in Norwegian more than thirty years ago and since then has been translated into close to…
The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann
Doubleday Review by George Yatchisin A study of skullduggery and heroism, vainglory and stiff-upper lips, the unbelievable odyssey that is David Gann’s latest nonfiction work The Wager also manages to…
Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House by Alex Prud’homme
Knopf Review by George Yatchisin Freedom Fries—the bogus re-naming bestowed by right-wingers requiring simple-minded revenge during the Iraq War when France was a hesitant ally to the US—weren’t the first…