Desire Is the Human Condition
Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life by Luke Burgis. St Martins Press, 2021. Hardcover, 304 pp, $29. Reviewed by Thomas J Bevan “All are lunatics,” Ambrose Bierce once said, “but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.” And the...
‘God, If There Was a God’
Missionaries: A Novel by Phil Klay. Penguin Press, 2020, Hardcover, 416 pages, $28. Reviewed by Joshua Hren It isn’t surprising that Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity begins by immersing us in the rejection thereof, the highways of doubt and the...
The Place of Punctuation in Literary Art
Mark My Words: Profiles of Punctuation in Modern Literature by Lee Clark Mitchell. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. Softcover, 166 pages, $15. Reviewed by Oliver Spivey Many literature professors have long expressed their embarrassment at simply professing literature. Not...
Does Junior Know Best?
The Handsome Little Cygnet By Matthew Mehan. TAN Books, 2021. Hardcover, 48 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Esther O’Reilly Once upon a time in the city, there was a handsome little cygnet whose parents loved him very much. So begins Matthew Mehan’s newest illustrated...
Thoughtless Mechanism
Rebooting AI: Building Artificial Intelligence We Can Trust By Gary Marcus and Ernest Davis. Pantheon Books, 2019. Hardcover, 288 pages, $29. Reviewed by Nicholas Meverel Some years ago, without fanfare, the phrase “artificial intelligence” began to refer no longer to...
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