Enlarging Emily Dickinson
A Loaded Gun: Emily Dickinson for the 21st Century by Jerome Charyn. Bellevue Literary Press, 2016. Paperback, 255 pages, $20. The first part of Jerome Charyn’s title alludes to one of Emily Dickinson’s most enigmatic and powerful poems, which begins, “My Life had...A Novel Out of Time
Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin. Translated by Lisa Hayden. Oneworld Publications, 2015. Cloth, 352 pages, $25. In an interview with Rod Dreher, Eugene Vodalazkin, author of the novel Laurus, says that he wanted to write about something good. In the same interview he...The Many Dimensions of Charles Williams
Charles Williams: The Third Inkling by Grevel Lindop. Oxford University Press, 2015. Cloth, xx + 493 pp., $35.Acclaimed in his day by the likes of W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, and Dorothy L. Sayers, Charles Williams (1886–1945) suffered a...Judges and Dons
Divergent Paths: The Academy and the Judiciary by Richard Posner. Harvard University Press, 2016. Hardcover, 432 pages, $30.For a still-active judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit who “moonlights” as a law professor, Richard Posner is oddly and...Memory and Mythmaking
The German War: A Nation Under Arms, 1939–1945 (Citizens and Soldiers) By Nicholas Stargardt Basic Books, 2015. Hardcover, 704 pp., $35. At the end of 1999, Time named Albert Einstein as “Person of the Century.” At a New Year’s Eve celebration held in a German castle...
Kirk saw poetry, fiction, tradition, and restraint as essential to understanding America and preserving its character. In his review of "On America," @cjscalia explores Kirk’s vision of the founding, statesmanship, literature, and the enduring ideas that have shaped the republic.