Review by Walter Cummins First, came the gospel writer cluster of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Now, two thousand years later, the world has another “according to” version, in this…
Category: Genres
The Pull of the Stars by Emma Donoghue
Review by David Starkey “In October 2018, inspired by the centenary of the great flu,” Emma Donoghue tells us in the Author’s Note of her new novel, “I began writing…
Rodham: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld
Review by David Starkey The first of the three parts of Curtis Sittenfeld’s novel Rodham is entitled “The Catch,” and it mostly follows the historical record of Bill Clinton and…
Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir by Natasha Trethewey
Review by David Starkey As she tells it in her memoir Memorial Drive, former United States Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey had a relatively idyllic childhood, especially for a biracial girl…
The Presidents vs. The Press by Harold Holzer
Review by Elizabeth Starkey In The Presidents vs. The Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media from the Founding Fathers to the Fake News, Harold Holzer,…
What Were We Thinking by Carlos Lozada
Review by Elizabeth Starkey What Were We Thinking, from Washington Post book critic Carlos Lozada, bears the subtitle A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era, but could have just…
Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Review by Brian Tanguay For many white people in America, the work of confronting our history of racism is hard and uncomfortable, a topic to avoid or view as something…
Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout
Review by David Starkey Elizabeth Strout is a fine writer, and novels such as The Burgess Boys and My Name Is Lucy Barton are very good. Still, Olive Kitteridge, her…
Twenty-One Truths About Love by Matthew Dicks
Review by David Starkey It certainly seems like a gimmick to write a novel composed entirely of lists, and yet Matthew Dicks pulls it off so successfully, that by the…
Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
Review by Brian Tanguay Maurice Hearne and Charlie Redmond are not the kind of men you would invite for dinner. Were you to see them coming toward you on a…