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...
Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man by Anne-Sophie Constant. Plough, 2019. Paperback, 250 pages, $18. Reviewed by Matthew Loftus About a decade ago came a minor skirmish in the ongoing fight among evangelicals about our disposition towards the faith that goes back...
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction by Alec Nevala-Lee. Dey Street Books, 2018. Hardcover, 532 pages, $29. Reviewed by Thomas F. Bertonneau For one who knows the subject matter, or who...
Chaucer: A European Life by Marion Turner. Princeton University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 624 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson We know so little about Shakespeare’s life. The facts could be put onto no more than a page. That has not prevented biographers from...
The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age By Leo Damrosch. Yale University Press, 2019. Hardcover, 473 pages, $30. Reviewed by John C. Chalberg Better than a century ago G. K. Chesterton found much that was wrong with his world. In his...
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!