Accountancy and Authority
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace. Back Bay Books, 2012. Paperback, 597 pages, $18. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet At a certain point you realize that David Foster Wallace is as much a horror writer as Stephen King, and the monsters under his bed are twins: absorption...
Murray’s Lyric Lament
The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam By Douglas Murray. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2018. Paperback, 384 pages, $20. Reviewed by Henry George Over August and September of 2015 nearly 2 million people entered Europe. Germany added 1–2 percent of its...
It Will Mean What the Words Say!
The Essential Works of Thomas More Ed. by Gerard B. Wegemer and Stephen W. Smith. Yale University Press, 2020. Hardcover, 1520 pages, $100. Reviewed by Kenneth Craycraft Three scenes from A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt’s play about the elevation and martyrdom of...
Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics
Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. Simon & Schuster, 2020. Hardcover, 336 pages, $28. Reviewed by Austin Coffey Ezra Klein—the political journalist, blogger, former cable news host, co-founder of Vox, and current editor-at-large thereof—has published his first...
Varieties of the British Right
Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929–1939) by Bernhard Dietz. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hardcover, 328 pages, $120 (Paper, $40.) Reviewed by James Baresel One could easily suspect that a book with the title...
Dorothy L. Sayers’s Tough Love
The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays Edited by Carole Vanderhoof. Plough Publishing House, 2018. Paperback, 241 pages, $18. Reviewed by Emina Melonic Famously called by C. S. Lewis “gleefully ogreish,” Dorothy L....
The Arrogance of Blueprints
A conversation with Amity Shlaes The Bookman is pleased to speak with Amity Shlaes about her new book Great Society: A New History. Amity Shlaes chairs the board of the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation, and is the author of six books, including four New York...
Depths of Hell, Heights of English
Paradise Lost: A Primer by Michael Cavanagh. Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Paperback, 256 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk There’s great value in reading fictional literature that imagines hell, devils, and the origin of evil—and it’s not just because...
Timing Devices
Ordinary Time: Poems by Paul Mariani. Slant Books, 2019. Paperback, 80 pages, $11. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The weeks in the Christian liturgical calendar outside the major festal seasons are numbered in ordinary time, First Sunday, Second Sunday, and so on,...
For America250, @lsheahan enters the fray:
What the American Revolution Secured: Order, Justice, and Freedom
A "revolution not made, but prevented.” Russell Kirk fondly and frequently quoted E. J. Payne’s pithy summary of Burke’s view of the Glorious Revolution.
"So yes, Lord Alfred, perhaps you are right after all. ’Tis not too late to seek a newer world! Perhaps one last Ulyssean adventure remains beyond the sunset, and perhaps some work of noble note may yet be done."