Bair, Beauvoir, and the Becketeers

Bair, Beauvoir, and the Becketeers

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...
Fortunate Naivety

Fortunate Naivety

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...
Tales of Science and Fiction

Tales of Science and Fiction

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...
Placing Chaucer

Placing Chaucer

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...
Members of the Club

Members of the Club

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...