Still Left in the Dark
Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark by Brian Kellow. Viking Adult, 2011. Hardcover, 417 pages, $28.After Richard Nixon was re-elected President in 1972, Newsweek magazine quoted acclaimed film critic Pauline Kael as saying: “I live in a rather special world. I only know...Pragmatists versus Agrarians?
Superfluous Southerners: Cultural Conservatism and the South, 1920–1990 by John J. Langdale. University of Missouri Press, 2012. Cloth, 192 pages, $50. (Kindle ed.) John J. Langdale’s Superfluous Southerners paints a magnificent portrait of Southern conservatism and...The Misremembered President
Coolidge by Amity Shlaes. HarperCollins, 2013. Hardback, 565 pages, $35. Coolidge. The title is as spare and direct as the subject. Building on her previous book, The Forgotten Man, Amity Shlaes might have added “The Forgotten President.” Then again, perhaps she...
The Pulpy Roots of ‘Fahrenheit 451’
Ray Bradbury (1923–2012) early found his métier in two forms, the short story and the thirty-minute radio drama. Three excellent literary mentors advised and worked with him when he was in his twenties—Catherine L. Moore (1911–1987) and Leigh Brackett (1915–1978) for...Eliot’s Politics in Context
Dreams of a Totalitarian Utopia: Literary Modernism and Politics, by Leon Surette. McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2011. Cloth, xv + 363 pages. $59.95.Some years ago at a conference a speaker mentioned in passing that Eliot had “flirted with fascism.” This comment...
What will @lsheahan, @DavidGBonaguraJ, Isabel Dobbs and @darrellfalconbu of @ubookman be reading this summer? Check out the post below.