Finding the Historical Vergil

Finding the Historical Vergil

Vergil: The Poet’s Life By Sarah Ruden. Yale University Press, 2023. Hardcover, 200 pages, $26. Reviewed by Paul Krause. Vergil is the greatest Roman poet. We know him as the poet of the Aeneid, the Eclogues, and the Georgics. Vergil is also Dante’s guide through hell...
Early Modern Queens

Early Modern Queens

Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power By Leah Redmond Chang.  Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2023. Hardcover, 512 pages, $35.00.  Reviewed by Jesse Russell. In the Anglophone world, there is one (and only one) Renaissance queen: Elizabeth Tudor....
The Life of Joseph Epstein

The Life of Joseph Epstein

Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life: Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life By Joseph Epstein.  Free Press, 2024.  Hardcover, 304 pages, $29.99. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. Never? Maybe saying so really is OK, especially when you know that you had little to...
JP O’Malley Interviews Author Maurice Samuels

JP O’Malley Interviews Author Maurice Samuels

Alfred Dreyfus The Man at the Center of the Affair By Maurice Samuels. Yale University Press, 2024. Paperback, 224 pages, $20. Maurice Samuels published Alfred Dreyfus: The Man at the Center of the Affair early this year. The University Bookman contributor JP O’Malley...
The Left Wing Patriot

The Left Wing Patriot

The Controversialist: Arguments with Everyone, Left Right and Center By Martin Peretz.  Wicked Son, 2023. Hardcover, 352 pages, $28.00. Reviewed by Chuck Chalberg. If it can be said that a book occasionally arrives at just the right moment, Martin Peretz’s...