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...
Susan Cooper on the Moral Imagination in Fantasy Fiction
Interviewed by Isaiah Flair. Editor’s Note: Susan Cooper is one of the preeminent fantasy fiction authors of the last 50 years. Her popular series, The Dark Is Rising, has influenced generations of readers. She won the American Library Association’s Margaret A....
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...
Literary Virtue and Vice
Deep Reading: Practices to Subvert the Vices of Our Distracted, Hostile, and Consumeristic Age By Rachel B. Griffis, Julie Ooms, and Rachel M. De Smith Roberts. Baker Academic, 2024. Paperback, 240 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Sarah Reardon. I sat in disbelief in front...
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!