“Writing and Holding”
On Maggie Nelson's "The Argonauts."
All Reviews
In Dialogue with Dogma: Women Doing Battle with Religion
Two books on women's traditional roles inside a high-commitment, orthodox religion in the US.
Why Liberalism Needs Islam
American and European missionaries of liberalism are trying to proselytize Muslims to the system of values of Western liberalism.
Difficult Terrain Ahead, Guide Recommended
Smith has, for the most part, done an excellent job of condensing the key themes and concerns of "A Secular Age" into fewer than 150 pages.
The Journalist: Judith Miller’s Side of the Story
Judith Miller's intentions for writing this memoir aren't in question. What has been, and what continues to be, questionable is the accuracy of her writing.
Austin’s Psychic Heart
On David Heymann's recent collection of short stories, "My Beautiful City Austin."
California, Coming Home: On “Valley Fever” and “Life #6”
"Life #6" and "Valley Fever," both by writers from California, have recently tapped into the long American tradition of writing about the West Coast.
A Full Life Inside Each Drop
On the Move is Oliver Sacks’s most revealing book to date.
Turkey Under Western Eyes
"Turkish Awakening" attempts to move beyond an orientalist epistemology.
Wake Up and Smell the Weird
"Three Moments of an Explosion" is not a manifesto, and it is in no way overtly politically didactic.
Tandem Noir
Lesley Trites on "The Hand That Feeds You," a psychological thriller by A.J. Rich.
Superbeings Who Walk the Boundaries
Jama-Everett upends the cultural assumptions common to many familiar superhero stories.
The Writing Life
There is, Bukowski knew, an inimitable world between aspiration and success, a time to rage against the man, and a time to soften the blow.
Good Literary Criticism: On the Crisis of Man
What happened to the 20th century’s universal man?
Second Acts: A Second Look at Second Books of Poetry by Eleanor Stanford and Arthur Sze
Stanford and Sze are "acutely attuned to the physical world, manifested through science, nature, culture, and the sensuous realms of food, drink, and love."
“Addio” to Naples’s Little Women
Elena Ferrante has written a Greek tragedy with Lila as its heroine, but "The Story of the Lost Child" restores the sisterhood destroyed in the previous novel.