After Such Knowledge
Sergeant Salinger: A Novel by Jerome Charyn. Bellevue Literary Press, 2021. Hardcover, 288 pages, $28.50. Reviewed by Carl E. Rollyson Biographical novels trouble certain readers. What is true? What is made up? Why isn’t biography enough? Why not just read Salinger,...
Everything Stays the Same
Dostoevsky in Love: An Intimate Life by Alex Christofi. Bloomsbury Continuum, 2021. Hardcover, 236 pages. $35. Reviewed by Albert Wald In an article on André Gide’s Memories of the Assize Court in the May 2020 issue of The New Criterion, former prison doctor Anthony...
The Literature of Wisdom and Enjoyment
On Reading Well: Finding the Good Life through Great Booksby Karen Swallow Prior. Brazos Press, 2018.Hardcover, 272 pages, $20. Reviewed by Daniel Buck Society needs literary critics. Time being a scarce resource, they help us to sift between the gold and the dross,...
The Heart of Progress
A Road to Nowhere: The Idea of Progress and Its Critics by Matthew W. Slaboch. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017. Hardcover, 208 pages, $47.50. Reviewed by Luma Simms My parents marveled at the freeways when we first came to America. As they learned to drive the...
Theodore Roosevelt and Statecraft for a World Power
First Great Triumph: How Five Americans Made Their Country a World Power By Walter Zimmerman. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002. Hardcover, 562 pages, $15. Reviewed by Jack Beyrer Teddy Roosevelt was a man so vast he contained multitudes. For progressives, the...
@ubookman The series seeks to advance understanding of the significance of the American founding to our times through fresh, concise presentations. The following piece by @ubookman editor @lsheahan sets the stage: https://buff.ly/Aakgs0W
Throughout the semiquincentennial year celebrating America’s independence, @ubookman will invite a range of writers and speakers to contribute to a series drawing upon Russell Kirk’s work on the American Revolution and the constitutional order it secured.