I Would Kill for the Thrill of First Love

by | Feb 2, 2015

Marta Oulie by Sigrid Undset, translated by Tiina Nunnally, with an introduction by Jane Smiley. University of Minnesota Press, 2014. Paperback, 128 pages, $16. Marta Oulie opens with the confession, “I have been unfaithful to my husband.” So it comes as no surprise...

Lives of the Saints

by | Feb 2, 2015

The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution by Walter Isaacson. Simon & Schuster, 2014. Hardcover, 543 pages, $35. The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s story of the scientists, engineers, programmers, and entrepreneurs...

That Was in Another Country

by | Jan 25, 2015

Hoover’s FBI and the Fourth Estate: The Campaign to Control the Press and the Bureau’s Image by Matthew Cecil. University of Kansas Press, 2014. Hardcover, 368 pages, $35.Reviewed by R. J. StoveThe largely ignored death in South Carolina, in March 2013, of...

The Remaining Western Illusion

by | Jan 19, 2015

Lies, Passions and Illusions: The Democratic Imagination in the Twentieth Century by François Furet. Chicago University Press, 2014. Hardcover, 128 pages, $20.By his own admission François Furet was a Tocquevillian. The label is important and elusive and, for a...

A Gentleman of Letters

by | Jan 12, 2015

Selected Letters of Norman Mailer Edited by J. Michael Lennon. Random House, 2014. Hardcover, 867 pages, $40. By any measure, Norman Mailer (1923–2007) is one of the most important writers of post-World War II America. Over seven decades, he produced powerful and...