‘All of time is cut in two’
And After All by Rhina P. Espaillat. Able Muse Press, 2019. Paperback, 130 pages, $20. Reviewed by Midge Goldberg “Without you,” Rhina Espaillat says, “all of time is cut in two.” The best poems in Espaillat’s new book, And After All, are about grief. Espaillat lost...
The Function of Criticism in a Time of Entropy
American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring By William Giraldi. Liveright, 2018. Hardcover, 462 pages, $30. Reviewed by Oliver Spivey William Giraldi, author of the critical prose collected in American Audacity: In Defense of Literary Daring, is that rarest of...
A Justified Confessions
Confessions by Augustine, translated by Thomas Williams. Hackett Publishing Company, 2019. Paperback, 344 pages, $11. Reviewed by Eve Tushnet Thomas Williams spends a decent chunk of the introduction to his new translation of St. Augustine’s Confessions justifying its...
Fault Lines in American Identity
Pop Culture and the Dark Side of the American Dream: Con Men, Gangsters, Drug Lords, and Zombies by Paul A. Cantor University Press of Kentucky, 2019. Hardcover, 224 pages, $40. Reviewed by Harrison F. Dietzman Anna Sorokin, an émigré fashion student of modest means,...
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!