The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar: essays on poets & poetry by Helen Vendler. Harvard University Press, 2015. Hardcover, 444 pages, $35. DANIEL JAMES SUNDAHL Helen Vendler’s The Ocean, the Bird, and the Scholar opens with a twelve-page account of her life as a...
Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories by Thomas McGuane. Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Cloth, 354 pages, $35. JAMES E. PERSON JR. The short stories of Thomas McGuane can be summarized in the words of John Gay’s self-chosen epitaph: “Life is a jest, and all things shew it; /...
Jews Queers Germans: A Novel/History by Martin Duberman. Seven Stories Press, 2017. Paperback, 384 pages, $20. EVE TUSHNET Martin Duberman, in his recent “novel/history” Jews Queers Germans, rarely describes clothing. He describes, instead, physical attractiveness—the...
The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible by Sarah Ruden. Pantheon Books, 2017. Hardcover, 232 pages, $27. ELIZABETH BITTNER “I have no formal qualifications whatsoever as a biblical scholar—not one degree, not even a single course credit.”...
A Political Companion to Flannery O’Connor edited by Henry T. Edmonson III. The University Press of Kentucky, 2017. Hardcover, 398 pages, $60. Reviewed by KARL C. SCHAFFENBURG This volume represents the latest addition to an ongoing series from the University Press of...
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!