Reagan’s Consistent Cheerful Convictions

Reagan’s Consistent Cheerful Convictions

The Literary Reagan: Authentic Quotations from His Life By Nicholas Dujmovic. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019. Hardcover, 346 pages, $88. Reviewed by William F. Meehan III Nicholas Dujmovic’s rationale for compiling and editing The Literary Reagan is clear: the...
Writer as Goad

Writer as Goad

Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures by Adina Hoffman. Yale University Press, 2019 Hardcover, 264 pages, $26. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson Ben Hecht is one of those American writers who seems to have had a hand in everything. He was a Chicago newspaperman who also...
The Importance of Being Iris

The Importance of Being Iris

Why Iris Murdoch Matters By Gary Browning. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. Paperback, 272 pages, $27. Reviewed by Emina Melonic Philosophy and literature are often not very good bedfellows. For the most part, the novelist, or any artist, does not care about philosophy. It...
Nothing More to Prove

Nothing More to Prove

The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965–2005 By Zachary Leader Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Hardcover, 784 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson I was hard on the first volume, The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915–1964, in the June 2015 issue of The New...
Churchill as Communicator

Churchill as Communicator

Churchill: Walking with Destiny by Andrew Roberts. Viking, 2018. Hardcover, 1152 pages, $40. Reviewed by Joseph Bottum and Benjamin F. Jones There are now more than a thousand biographies of Winston Churchill. Or so declares the publicity material accompanying Andrew...