The Time That We Are Given
The Outsiding (A Jo Grant Mystery) by Sally Wright. Amazon Digital Services, 2018. Kindle, 1038 kb, $3. Reviewed by Ashlee Cowles Why do we read fiction? A cynic may claim it’s to avoid reality, but the devoted reader knows better. We read stories, including the...
Moral Reasoning in an Acceptable Time
The Kairos Novels: the Wrinkle in Time and Polly O’Keefe Quartets by Madeleine L’Engle, edited by Leonard S. Marcus. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 1917 pages, $80. Reviewed by Matt Miller Fantastic literature has always been beloved of those who feel themselves...
Why Make Men Pigs
Circe by Madeline Miller. Little, Brown and Company, 2018. Hardcover, 400 pages, $27. Reviewed by Colleen M. Curran Madeline Miller’s 2011 debut novel, Song of Achilles, presented a recasting of Homer’s Iliad that retold the familiar tale from the perspective of...
A Hope Beyond Our Sight
The Fall of Gondolin by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018. Hardcover, 304 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard The Fall of Gondolin is, appropriately enough, the story of endings: the end of the mythical kingdom, to be...
There are metaphorical hills on which I would be willing to die. The Oxford comma is one of them.
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!