No Machos or Pop Stars: When the Leeds Art Experiment Went Punk by Gavin Butt

Duke Review by George Yatchisin Polymath producer-musician Brian Eno has this great theory about “scenius” as the corrective to “‘genius,’ which exemplifies what I call the ‘Big Man’ theory of…

Cure: New Orleans Drinks and How to Mix ‘Em by Neal Bodenheimer and Emily Timberlake

(Abrams) Review by George Yatchisin What Marseilles is to the Mediterranean, New Orleans is to the Caribbean, a savory meeting place where countries and cultures, priests and pirates, hopeful and…

The Last Days of Roger Federer: And Other Endings, by Geoff Dyer

Review by George Yatchisin Some lines from Robert Christgau about Lloyd Cole have always stuck with me: “So what if he can’t stop talking about books and movies and gathers…

Orwell’s Roses, by Rebecca Solnit

Review by George Yatchisin Think of Rebecca Solnit’s Orwell’s Roses as a whydunit. Beyond admitting how much he influenced her as a writer/journalist/activist, Solnit was also moved to learn of…

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire by Jonathan M. Katz

Review by George Yatchisin Forget about the butterfly effect, it seems the last 130 years of U.S. foreign involvement should be called the Butler Effect. By that I refer to…