Knopf Review by Brian Tanguay Abraham Lincoln believed that democracy was the single greatest achievement in human history. How Lincoln came to this belief is less well known than other…
Tag: Review by Brian Tanguay
An Ordinary Youth by Walter Kempowski, Translated by Michael Lipton
New York Review of Books Review by Brian Tanguay In November 1944 Walter Kempowski was called up for mandatory service by the German government, and detailed to go from house…
Fascism in America: Past and Present, Edited by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld and Janet Ward
Cambridge University Press Review by Brian Tanguay One of the animating questions in the essays that comprise Fascism in America is whether or not our national political arrangement has reached…
Creature by Marsha de la O
Pittsburgh Review by George Yatchisin Ventura, California-based poet Marsha de la O knows of fire, force of destruction and engine of rebirth. Consider the poem “The Afterlife of Flames,” from…
The Suicide Museum by Ariel Dorfman
Other Press Review by Brian Tanguay In what he refers to as a “sort of epilogue” to his colossal novel, The Suicide Museum, Ariel Dorfman thanks the Spanish author Javier…
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah
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…
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…
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Grove Press Essay by Brian Tanguay I first read Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller thirty years ago. I kept coming across references to Miller in the books I was…
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.…
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…