by Elizabeth Bittner | Jan 5, 2020
How to Be Unlucky: Reflections on the Pursuit of Virtue by Joshua Gibbs. CiRCE Institute, 2018. Paperback, 239 pages. $16. Reviewed by Elizabeth Bittner If we were to judge a book by its cover, we would likely steer clear of Joshua Gibbs’s latest work. Titled How to...
by Daniel James Sundahl | Jan 5, 2020
The Free Speech Century by Lee C. Bollinger and Geoffrey R. Stone. Oxford University Press, 2019. Paperback, 376 pages, $21.95. Reviewed by Daniel James Sundahl In the final chapter to Lee Bollinger’s and Geoffrey R. Stone’s The Free Speech Century, the editors pose a...
by Michial Farmer | Dec 29, 2019
Parisian Lives: Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir, and Me: A Memoir by Deidre Bair. Nan A. Talese, 2019. Hardcover, 368 pages, $29.95. Reviewed by Michial Farmer When she set out to write her award-winning biography of Samuel Beckett, Deirdre Bair had never even read...
by Marlo Safi | Dec 29, 2019
Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community: Eight Essays by Wendell Berry. Counterpoint [1993], 2018. Paperback, 208 pages, $18. Reviewed by Marlo Safi Today, brutality abounds. In its countless iterations, whether the brutality toward the unborn; the poor and...
by Stephen B Presser | Dec 22, 2019
A Republic, If You Can Keep It by Neil Gorsuch with Jane Nitze and David Feder. Crown Forum, 2019. Cloth, 352 pages, $30. Reviewed by Stephen B. Presser More than two centuries ago, Samuel Johnson made the point that there were some things that were remarkable not...
by James Baresel | Dec 22, 2019
The Apple of His Eye: Converts from Islam in the Reign of Louis IX by William Chester Jordan. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 200 pages, $35. Reviewed by James Baresel My suspicions are that barely a minority of well-read conservatives with an avid but...
by Susannah Black | Dec 15, 2019
A Short Story by Susannah Black First, look at his bookshelves: this is always crucial. As soon as Székely was out of the room, Sofia headed to the shelves beside the office door—these all seemed to be galleys, and she spotted, with envy, the new Pierre Manent, of...
by Anthony M. Barr | Dec 15, 2019
The Lawgivers: The Parallel Lives of Numa Pompilius and Lycurgus of Sparta Translated by C. Scot Hicks and David V. Hicks. CiRCE Institute, 2019. Paperback, 167 pages, $19. Reviewed by Anthony M. Barr Plutarch’s Lives is one of the most illuminating works written in...
by Grant Havers | Dec 8, 2019
Ancient Greece and American Conservatism: Classical Influence on the Modern Right By John Bloxham. I.B. Tauris/Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Hardcover, 284 pages, $99 (Paperback, $40). Reviewed by Grant Havers The application of ancient Greek thought and history to...
by James Davenport | Dec 8, 2019
On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts by James K. A. Smith. Brazos Press, 2019. Hardcover, 256 pages, $25. Reviewed by James Davenport There is an old parable I have often been told. It goes something like this: A man is...
