What Makes a Classic?

What Makes a Classic?

Wit’s Treasury: Renaissance England and the Classics  By Stephen Orgel. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Hardcover,  216 pages, $39.95. Reviewed by John Tuttle. What is a classic? It’s a provocative question for the literary-bent mind. Just what...
Restoring the True and the Beautiful

Restoring the True and the Beautiful

The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus By Andrew Klavan. Zondervan Books, 2022. Hardcover, 272 pages, $26.99. Reviewed by Emeline McClellan. English prose has entered a...
Nihilism as Public Policy

Nihilism as Public Policy

Interventions 2020 By Michel Houellebecq. Translated by Andrew Brown. Polity Press, 2022. Hardcover, 314 pages, $25.00. Reviewed by Pedro Blas González. What makes Michel Houellebecq a singular writer for today is his understanding of postmodern man’s existential...
Shakespeare and the Real 

Shakespeare and the Real 

Shakespeare and the Idea of Western Civilization By R. V. Young.  Catholic University of America Press, 2022. Paperback, 280 pages, $34.95.  Reviewed by Michael Yost.  It would be almost a miracle if anyone who has read, understood, and formed opinions around the...
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...