“Show me a hero and I’ll write you a tragedy.” –F. Scott Fitzgerald Reading a great biography is like watching a tragedy unfold. The promises of youth gradually give way to the limitations imposed by reality, and demise and denouement inevitably ensue. This is especially compelling when the subject of the biography is a larger-than-life […]
Books
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
The French Foreign Legion: the colonial force par excellence
A new book situates the Legion within the shameful history of French colonialism.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
On the campaign trail in 1960 with John F. Kennedy
For those who still want to believe that a full JFK presidency would surely have led to an American Camelot, this book is not for you.
Posted inNews, Politics & Society
Here’s what Hillary Clinton says about Pope Francis and other Catholic subjects in her new book
Mrs. Clinton writes that a TED Talk given by Pope Francis earlier this year helped her move beyond anger following her unexpected loss to Donald Trump.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Telling stories and paying witness to suffering
Elizabeth Strout’s new short story collection offers an array of poignant case studies portraying this legacy of trauma.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
An unsettling look at America’s culture of self-defense
“Stand your ground” laws typically expand the historic reach of the “castle doctrine,” the right in English common law to defending one’s own property.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Bringing Thomas Merton’s wisdom to children with an ABC book
A new introduction could plant seeds in children that will perhaps flower later in life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Telling stories and paying witness to suffering
While Strout’s masterful design draws us in, it is the searing emotional specificity of her language that captures us.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
In Alice McDermott’s new Brooklyn novel, Sister knows best
Alice McDermott has once again delivered a novel to ponder and cherish, from its moral quandaries down to its wry humor and hypnotic prose.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
A patchwork quilt
If Seamus Heaney “digs” with his pen, Alexie sews with his.