A Pop Fiction Master and Monster
Rest in Peace, Jeffrey Archer—politician, novelist, and reviled human being.
Kevin Mims
· 10 min read
Books
A collection of 291 posts
The Genetics of Crime and Punishment
Despite her professed atheism, Kathryn Paige Harden insists on making quasi-religious claims about free will and moral responsibility.
Damien Morris
· 13 min read
War Stories
Yonah Jeremy Bob and Elliot Kaufman’s account of the 7 October massacre and its aftermath is a triumph of dogged reporting and shrewd analysis.
Michael M. Rosen
· 8 min read
On Trauma-ism
Catherine Liu’s new book makes some valuable points, but it fundamentally misunderstands the trauma culture it critiques.
Marilyn Simon
· 11 min read
Spells that Sell
John Updike, Alice Hoffman, and the golden age of “witch lit.”
Kevin Mims
· 11 min read
Hiroshima: A Hinge Point for Humanity
Kiyoshi Tanimoto’s extraordinary testimony about the Hiroshima attack and its aftermath has been published by his daughter some forty years after his death.
Michael M. Rosen
· 7 min read
I, Victim
Pascal Bruckner’s book about victimhood culture invites us to choose liberation, and to move from resentment to a secular kind of grace.
Marilyn Simon
· 9 min read
Last Man Standing
Francis Fukuyama’s new memoir assesses an intellectual life devoted to the health of the liberal-democratic idea.
Matt Johnson
· 12 min read
The Beautiful and Banned
There is a rather large difference between the banned books promoted by celebrities and genuinely transgressive and provocative writing.
Josh Allan
· 5 min read
Dark Artist
Frank Miller’s valuable new memoir explores the creative life of one of America’s most gifted writers and artists.
Ron Capshaw
· 9 min read
Capturing the ‘Odyssey’
Homer’s epic provides a window on to a strange, paradoxical, fascinating, beautiful, and terrifying world that is at once familiar and unfamiliar.
Mallory Young
· 8 min read
Blood, Progress, and Amnesia
There is real value in Noah Rothman's century-spanning chronicle of left-wing terror, but it falls short in analysis.
Jason Manning
· 9 min read
Omer Bartov: What Went Wrong?
A distinguished historian of the Holocaust views Israel through the wrong prism.
Benny Morris
· 25 min read
The Modern Mythology of AI
LLMs are incredibly useful, even astonishing. But they aren’t “thinking” about anything.
Peter L. Levin
· 10 min read
Charlie Is My Darling
Claudia Verhoeven’s new book is a valuable contribution to the crowded library of Mansonia.
George Case
· 9 min read