Bair, Beauvoir, and the Becketeers

Bair, Beauvoir, and the Becketeers

Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me: A Memoir by Deidre Bair. Nan A. Talese, 2019. Hardcover, 368 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Michial Farmer When she set out to write her award-winning biography of Samuel Beckett, Deirdre Bair had never even read...
Poets of Brutality and Redemption

Poets of Brutality and Redemption

Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays by Wendell Berry. Counterpoint [1993], 2018. Paperback, 208 pages, $18. Reviewed by Marlo Safi Today, brutality abounds. In its countless iterations, whether the brutality toward the unborn; the poor and...
Fly-Fishing and the Constitution

Fly-Fishing and the Constitution

A Republic, If You Can Keep It by Neil Gorsuch with Jane Nitze and David Feder. Crown Forum, 2019. Cloth, 352 pages, $30. Reviewed by Stephen B. Presser More than two centuries ago, Samuel Johnson made the point that there were some things that were remarkable not...
Saint Louis and the Convert Immigrants

Saint Louis and the Convert Immigrants

The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in the Reign of Louis IX by William Chester Jordan. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 200 pages, $35. Reviewed by James Baresel My suspicions are that barely a minority of well-read conservatives with an avid but...
A More Hallowed Society

A More Hallowed Society

The Lawgivers: The Parallel Lives of Numa Pompilius and Lycurgus of Sparta Translated by C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks. CiRCE Institute, 2019. Paperback, 167 pages, $19. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr Plutarch’s Lives is one of the most illuminating works written in...
What Does Athens Have to Do with America?

What Does Athens Have to Do with America?

Ancient Greece and American Conservatism: Classical Influence on the Modern Right By John Bloxham. I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hardcover, 284 pages, $99 (Paperback, $40). Reviewed by Grant Havers The application of ancient Greek thought and history to...