Finding the Historical Vergil

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

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

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

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...
Evil and Good in Cormac McCarthy

Evil and Good in Cormac McCarthy

The Achievement of Cormac McCarthy By Vereen M. Bell. Louisiana State University Press, 1988/2023. Paperback, 160 pages, $24.99. Reviewed by Michael Yost. “I spoke with bitterness about my life and I said that I would take my own part against the slander of oblivion...