The War for the Second Age

The War for the Second Age

The Fall of Númenor, And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth By J. R. R. Tolkien. William Morrow, 2022. Hardcover, 320 pages, $40.00. Reviewed by Ben Reinhard. From childhood well into middle age, J. R. R. Tolkien was haunted by a recurring nightmare: a...
Indignity Human (and Poetic?)

Indignity Human (and Poetic?)

Minor Indignities: A Novel.  By Trevor Cribben Merrill. Wiseblood Books, 2020. Paperback, 233 pages, $16.00. Reviewed by Alex Taylor. Reading Trevor Cribben Merrill’s first novel, Minor Indignities, one finds a fictional analogue to William F. Buckley’s God and Man at...
The White Guard: Life Imitating Art, Yet Again

The White Guard: Life Imitating Art, Yet Again

by Dwight Sutherland, Jr. Seldom does one encounter a novel which offers such insight into today’s events. This is particularly true when the novel is based on events that happened over a century ago.  Mikhail Bulgakov was a Russian author who was born in Kiev in...
An Infinity of Imperfections

An Infinity of Imperfections

Infinite Regress: A Novel by Joshua Hren. Angelico Press, 2022. Paperback, 296 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by David G. Bonagura, Jr. “What he taught me was literally revolutionary in a way that set me free from the last hang-ups of that pablum Mom fed us and wanted us to...
Transcending the ‘Good Old Days’

Transcending the ‘Good Old Days’

Last Summer Boys: A Novel by Bill Rivers Lake Union Publishing, 2022 Paperback, 285 pages, $14.95 Reviewed by Ashlee Cowles Nostalgia is a word often used in reference to works of fiction like Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine and Stephen King’s novella “The Body,” which...