Harper Walter Cummins Readers can fantasize the meeting of two literary titans as an opportunity for an exchange of legendary brilliance. But it doesn’t always work out that way. When…
Author: David Starkey
White River Crossing by Ian McGuire
Crown Review by David Starkey If you were thinking it would be a good idea to send a group of mismatched and underprepared people to Canada’s far north in search…
Into the Weeds by Lydia Davis
Yale Review by David Starkey Anyone familiar with the wry and tricksy stories of Lydia Davis will not be surprised that in Into the Weeds—her book-length response to the question…
Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinction in Museums by Dolly Jørgensen
Chicago Review by David Starkey I have to admit that as I was reading through Dolly Jørgensen’s Ghosts Behind Glass: Encountering Extinctions in Museums, I sometimes wondered what, exactly, I…
Gerhard Richter, edited by Dieter Schwarz and Nicholas Serota
Citadelles & Mazenod Review by David Starkey Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of Gerhard Richter. Like anyone who has visited art museums over the years, I’ve seen plenty…
Play This Book Loud: Noisy Essays by Joe Bonomo
Georgia Review by David Starkey At the bottom of the record sleeve of the original vinyl LP pressing of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 album Let It Bleed is a message…
The Norton Lectures Centenary Editions
Harvard Review by David Starkey The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures at Harvard University are, if not the most famous, then certainly among the most famous lectures in American letters. Established…
The Irish Goodbye by Beth Ann Fennelly
Norton Review by David Starkey Back in 2018, I gave a rave review to Beth Ann Fennelly’s Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs. I was quite taken with her poet’s takes…
The Complete Notebooks by Albert Camus, translated by Ryan Bloom
Chicago Review by David Starkey Is Albert Camus’s most famous novel, The Stranger, a bit too programmatic? Is The Plague, which I reviewed during COVID, a bit too long? Is…
News and Notes
All the latest, from our editors and contributors 4/8/26: Read editor Brian Tanguay’s new post, “America: Land of Fears and Nightmares,” in Working-Class Scribbler. 3/20/26: Read editor David Starkey’s interview…