The Last Pratchett

The Shepherd’s Crown by Terry Pratchett. HarperCollins, 2015. Hardcover, 288 pages, $19.An agnostic friend once divided the science fiction novels of Ursula LeGuin into “Good Ursula” and “Bad Ursula”—by which he meant whether or not her didacticism hijacked her story....

The Convict-Bourgeois

Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, translated by Michael Hofmann. Melville House, 2010. Paperback, 544 pages, $17.There’s a four-page passage early on in Hans Fallada’s masterful 1937 novel Wolf Among Wolves in which we meet a policeman. At first Leo Gubalke is a...

The Uncozy Christie

A reflection on the underestimated Dame Agatha Christie at 125. Eve Tushnet Agatha Christie’s name is practically synonymous with comfort reading. Her publishers used to promise readers “a Christie for Christmas,” and her works are the inspiration for the mystery...

Et in Academia, Ego

Bradstreet Gate: A Novel by Robin Kirman. Crown, 2015. Hardcover, 320 pages, $26.Death and defeat haunt the college novel. College novels—whether they focus on students or professors—typically tell a story in which the shining promises of academia prove not only false...

Characterizing the Two Britains

Sea Changes by Derek Turner. Washington Summit Publishers, 2012. Paperback, 456 pages, $23. “And certainly the glass was beginning to melt away, just like a bright silvery mist. In another second Alice was through the glass, and had jumped lightly down into the...