Riverhead Books Review by Brian Tanguay The first time I became aware of Abdulrazak Gurnah was on this website when I read fellow contributor Walter Cummins’ review of The Last…
Category: Genres
A Splendid Intelligence: The Life of Elizabeth Hardwick by Cathy Curtis
Norton Review by Brian Tanguay “There is simply no accounting for her gifts. She was a unicorn, born among horses.” So wrote author and cultural critic William Deresiewicz in “The…
California Review of Books – 10 Best Books of 2023
The following list was decided after much consultation between California Review of Books co-editors David Starkey and Brian Tanguay and the journals’ most frequent reviewers, Walter Cummins and George Yatchisin.…
Blood Memory: The Tragic Decline and Improbable Resurrection of the American Buffalo by Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns
Knopf Review by David Starkey I’ve refrained from watching the new Ken Burns PBS documentary The American Buffalo to better assess its companion volume by Burns and Dayton Duncan, Blood…
Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky
Penguin Review by Walter Cummins First, a confession. I was not an objective reader of Sapolsky’s book because I was looking for evidence to undermine his thesis and find some…
What I Know about July by Kat Hausler
Meerkat Review by Walter Cummins Throughout most of Kat Hausler’s novel very little is known about the young woman called July, especially by Simon Kesler, who is by far most…
The Upside-Down World: Meetings with the Dutch Masters by Benjamin Moser
Liveright Review by David Starkey Last month, I was lucky enough to be in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. This was my first visit to that august institution, so I…
Tyranny of the Minority: How American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt
Crown Review by Brian Tanguay The latest collaboration between Harvard University professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt is equal parts civics tutorial, history lesson, comparative analysis, warning and remedy. A…
The Book of Angels by Thomas E. Kennedy
Wordcraft Review by Linda Lappin The Book of Angels is the title of a novel written by Michael Lynch, the main character of the late Thomas E. Kennedy’s occult thriller – The…