The Deauthorised Life of Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life by Jonathan Bate. Harper, 2015. Hardcover, 672 pages, $40.Every biography has a backstory involving how a biographer turns to a certain subject, what other biographies have been written, what sources are new or used differently....

Bradbury the Realist

Ray Bradbury by David Seed. Illinois University Press (Modern Masters of Science Fiction), 2015. Paperback, 207 pages, $24.Anything Martian is currently newsworthy—made so by NASA’s announcement that liquid water exists on the surface of the Red Planet, by various...

Are We a Nation of Heretics?

Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics by Ross Douthat. The Free Press, 2012 (2013). Paperback, 352 pages, $17. A few years ago, Ross Douthat, who has assumed the mantle of the conservative columnist at The New York Times, published Bad Religion: How We...

Permanence, Tradition, and Memory

Essays on Modernity: And the Permanent Things from Tradition by James A. Patrick, Introduced by Thomas Howard, Edited by B. R. Mullikin. Fort Worth: Tower Press Books, 2015. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, 190 pages. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of attending one of...

Et in Academia, Ego

Bradstreet Gate: A Novel by Robin Kirman. Crown, 2015. Hardcover, 320 pages, $26.Death and defeat haunt the college novel. College novels—whether they focus on students or professors—typically tell a story in which the shining promises of academia prove not only false...

On Not Being Boring

Acedia and its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire by R. J. Snell. Angelico Press, 2015. Paperback, 144 pages, $15.R. J. Snell has written a substantial and illuminating book, using the ancient concept of the vice of acedia (spiritual or...