Review by David Starkey Richard Powers’ new novel, Bewilderment, is—despite its portrayal of a mother and son who are capable of ecstatic connection with the natural world—one of the most…
Author: David Starkey
On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder; Illustrated by Nora Krug
Review by David Starkey Crown published Timothy Snyder’s original, text-only version of On Tyranny in February of 2017, a little more than a month after Donald Trump took office. The…
Frick Diptych Series
Holbein’s Sir Thomas More by Hilary Mantel and Xavier F. Salomon; Vermeer’s Mistress and Maid by Margaret Iacono and James Ivory; Gouthière’s Candelabras by Edmund de Waal and Charlotte Vignon;…
The Travel Writing Tribe: Journeys in Search of a Genre by Tim Hannigan
Review by Linda Lappin Travel writing has been pronounced dead at various times over the last century, only to spring back with new vigor, enticing new readers to lace up…
No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
Review by David Starkey The first half of Patricia Lockwood’s new novel, No One Is Talking About This, feels something like reading an uber-contemporary update of David Markson’s This Is…
Let Me Tell You What I Mean by Joan Didion
Review by David Starkey For those of us who love Joan Didion’s writing, we who can imagine her arched eyebrow as she crafts another perfectly turned phrase that is both…
Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South by Margaret Renkl
Review by David Starkey Living blue in the red states is no easy matter, but New York Times “contributing opinion writer” Margaret Renkl, whose beat is the “flora, fauna, politics…
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Review by David Starkey Like the narrators of Kazuo Ishiguro’s two most famous novels—Stevens of Remains of the Day and Kathy H. of Never Let Me Go—Klara of his latest…
Francis Bacon: Revelations by Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan
Review by David Starkey Francis Bacon: Revelations is a monumental book: the press release claim that it was “ten years in the making” doesn’t seem like an exaggeration. The notes…
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath & Ted Hughes by Janet Malcolm
Review by David Starkey Janet Malcolm, who died on June 16, 2021, typically referred to herself as a journalist. While that’s certainly an honorable occupation—and working for The New Yorker,she…