Why We’re All Playing Identity Politics
Why We’re Polarized by Ezra Klein. Simon & Schuster, 2020. Hardcover, 336 pages, $28. Reviewed by Austin Coffey Ezra Klein—the political journalist, blogger, former cable news host, co-founder of Vox, and current editor-at-large thereof—has published his first...
Varieties of the British Right
Neo-Tories: The Revolt of British Conservatives against Democracy and Political Modernity (1929–1939) by Bernhard Dietz. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hardcover, 328 pages, $120 (Paper, $40.) Reviewed by James Baresel One could easily suspect that a book with the title...
Dorothy L. Sayers’s Tough Love
The Gospel in Dorothy L. Sayers: Selections from Her Novels, Plays, Letters, and Essays Edited by Carole Vanderhoof. Plough Publishing House, 2018. Paperback, 241 pages, $18. Reviewed by Emina Melonic Famously called by C. S. Lewis “gleefully ogreish,” Dorothy L....
Depths of Hell, Heights of English
Paradise Lost: A Primer by Michael Cavanagh. Catholic University of America Press, 2020. Paperback, 256 pages, $30. Reviewed by Casey Chalk There’s great value in reading fictional literature that imagines hell, devils, and the origin of evil—and it’s not just because...
Timing Devices
Ordinary Time: Poems by Paul Mariani. Slant Books, 2019. Paperback, 80 pages, $11. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl The weeks in the Christian liturgical calendar outside the major festal seasons are numbered in ordinary time, First Sunday, Second Sunday, and so on,...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
So easy to forget that the best way to educate yourself is to read great works of literature and philosophy, then talk about them. Bring back the salon!