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★★★★☆ Returning to the fictional Maxwell family of Pittsburg, Stewart O’Nan’s Henry, Himself provides the backstory for two of the author’s previous, highly appreciated novels. The first, Wish You Were Here (2002), introduced the...
★★☆☆☆ The publishing industry is replete with high-quality novels featuring James Bond-like characters set in exotic locales. Tough, smart men—and the occasional woman protagonist—run into danger and win the day utilizing their smarts and...
★★★★☆ Fifty years ago, Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch blasted onto the nation’s movie screens with the impact of a Gatling gun mowing down an advancing army. The cowboy movie (and really, all movie-making)...
★★★★☆ Can any book, especially one as succinct (befitting a poet) as this one, explain the myriad factors that spark the production of a poem? Regardless of the precipitating factors, the key element, according...
★★★★☆ Step aside for a moment, Easy Rawlings: there is a new gumshoe in town, and he is out to do the right thing even if it might involve doing the wrong thing. Joe...
★★☆☆☆ Sub-titled “Stories From the Peatlands,” The Dark Stuff is far too textbook-like and not appealing enough for the casual reader. The facts are very nice but the writing does not resonate: it just...
★★★★☆ Anesthesia: The Gift of Oblivion and the Mystery of Consciousness “explores perhaps the most brilliant and baffling gift of modern medicine: the disappearing act that enables doctors and dentists to carry out surgery and...
★★★★★ “So, 007 is dead.” “Yes, sir. I’m afraid so.” The suit had kept its shape, M reflected. It was the man lying there, dripping wet and lifeless, who had lost his. Ian Fleming...
★★★★☆ Kevin Young’s Bunk is an absolutely delightful, well-researched journey through the minefields of “Hoaxes, Humbugs, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News.” From the public’s gullibility that made P.T. Barnum rich to Internet trolls,...
