The Humane Vision of Elmore Leonard

The Humane Vision of Elmore Leonard

by | Jul 22, 2018

Westerns: Last Stand at Saber River, Hombre, Valdez is Coming, Forty Lashes Less One, by Elmore Leonard. Edited by Terrence Rafferty. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 781 pages, $40. Reviewed by Will Hoyt I first got acquainted with Elmore “Dutch” Leonard when,...
Tomboys and Magic

Tomboys and Magic

by | Feb 4, 2018

The creepy-cozy tales of John Bellairs. Eve Tushnet Children fell in love with the tales of John Bellairs (1938–1991) because they perfectly combined creepy and cozy: the laughing skeleton, curled up by the fire with a mug of cider. In novels like The Curse of the...

Patiently Learning to Belong

by | Feb 4, 2018

Port William Novels & Stories: The Civil War to World War II by Wendell Berry. Library of America, 2018. Hardcover, 1018 pages, $40. This January, the Library of America released its first volume of Wendell Berry’s writings, Port William Novels & Stories (The...

Shining a Light on Dark Deeds

by | Oct 29, 2017

The Moral Imagination in the Mystery Novels of Sally Wright by Ashlee Cowles When it comes to fictional works of the moral imagination, fantasy novels tend to receive the most attention from critics who believe literature plays a vital role in the conservation of the...

A Great Story, Almost

by | Sep 3, 2017

Beren and Lúthien by J. R. R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. Hardcover, 288 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard Beren and Lúthien stands out among the posthumous Tolkien publications of the last decade or so. Unlike The...