Review by David Starkey Several years ago, as I was listening to the ambient music of Brian Eno, which has kept me company through decades of reading, writing and grading…
Author: David Starkey
Phase Six by Jim Shepard
Review by David Starkey Right about now, probably the last thing most readers are looking for is another book about pandemics, and Jim Shepard’s new novel is a pandemic book…
Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future by James Shapiro
Review by David Starkey The introduction to James Shapiro’s Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future recounts the Public Theater’s 2017 staging…
L’Origine: The Secret Life of the World’s Most Erotic Masterpiece by Lilianne Milgrom
Review by Linda Lappin Since its first foray into public view at the Brooklyn Museum in 1988, Gustave Courbet’s l’Origine du Monde, a depiction of female anatomy sans head, lower legs,…
2021 Poetry Month Reviews: April 22-30
by David Starkey Back in 2014, when I was reviewing books for the Santa Barbara Independent, I proposed an offbeat idea to my editor. I would offer one very short…
2021 Poetry Month Reviews: April 15 -21
By David Starkey Back in 2014, when I was reviewing books for the Santa Barbara Independent, I proposed an offbeat idea to my editor. I would offer one very short…
2021 Poetry Month Reviews: April 8 -14
By David Starkey Back in 2014, when I was reviewing books for the Santa Barbara Independent, I proposed an offbeat idea to my editor. I would offer one very short…
2021 Poetry Month Reviews: April 1 -7
By David Starkey Back in 2014, when I was reviewing books for the Santa Barbara Independent, I proposed an offbeat idea to my editor. I would offer one very short…
My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers
Review by David Starkey There is much to recommend My Vanishing Country, a memoir by the former (and future?) politician and current CNN commentator Bakari Sellers. Growing up in a…
How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy
Review by David Starkey How to Write One Song is an okay book by a great songwriter. Unlike the carefully crafted lyrics of Tweedy’s songs for his band Wilco, the…