Frederick Turner, Bard and Prophet

Apocalypse: An Epic Poem by Frederick Turner. The Ilium Press, 2016. Hardcover, 352 pages, $25.Whereas The University Bookman often confines itself to reviews of scholarly books, that is to say, of nonfiction, the present review-essay, although it addresses several...

The McKinley Mystery

President McKinley: Architect of the American Century by Robert W. Merry. Simon & Schuster, 2017. Hardcover, 624 pages, $35.This biography’s bold subtitle announces Robert W. Merry’s revisionist project. In the popular imagination, McKinley is a nondescript,...

Discipline and Desire

Some Permanent Things by James Matthew Wilson. Wiseblood Books, 2014. Paperback, 156 pages, $16.50. James Matthew Wilson’s first full-length poetry collection explores how we might rediscover “permanent things” in a time of distraction, disruption, and disposability....

Virgil, Guide to the Perplexed

The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by David Ferry. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Hardcover, 437 pages, $35.C. S. Lewis once said of Virgil’s Aeneid that “No man who has once read it with full perception remains an adolescent.” That was certainly true of my first...

Lectures on What Can’t Be Taught

Literature Class by Julio Cortázar. New Directions, 2017. Paperback, 280 pages, $19. The question of whether or not creative writing is something that can be taught isn’t a perennial one, at least not explicitly or directly. The American MFA program, with its tens of...

Mark Twain, Huckster

How Not to Get Rich: The Financial Misadventures of Mark Twain by Alan Pell Crawford. Houghton Mifflin, 2017. Hardcover, 240 pages, $27.How Not to Get Rich: I could write a book on that subject! Happily, Alan Pell Crawford, author mostly recently of the thoughtful and...