The Prophet of Dystopia at Rest: Margaret Atwood in Cuba
Canada has never supported the US embargo, and the countries’ good relations are for many Canadians a symbol of our independence.
Yvon Grenier
· 13 min read
Books
A collection of 209 posts
In Praise of the Novelization—Pop Fiction's Least Reputable Genre
This month brings us the release of Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. No, not the film. That came out in 2019. But now HarperCollins is publishing a novelization, written by Tarantino himself, and based on the earlier film. This particular type of fiction—the bastard offspring
Kevin Mims
· 20 min read
Modern Europe and the Enlightenment—A Review
Modern Europe and the Enlightenment opens by presenting a balanced examination and robust summary of Enlightenment values.
T.M. Murray
· 7 min read
James Baldwin and the Trouble with Protest Literature
“The hardest thing in the world to do,” wrote Ernest Hemingway in a 1934 article for Esquire, “is to write straight honest prose on human beings. First you have to know the subject; then you have to know how to write. Both take a lifetime to learn and anybody is
Samuel Kronen
· 24 min read
Remembering John Ball, the Writer Who Gave Us Virgil Tibbs
Sidney Poitier, who retired from acting 20 years ago, turned in many unforgettable screen performances over a career that spanned the entire second half of the 20th century. But his best known is almost certainly his portrayal of police officer Virgil Tibbs, the protagonist of Norman Jewison’s 1967 film
Kevin Mims
· 20 min read
Rinaldo Walcott’s On Property—A Review
Indeed, the title misleads: On Property focuses more on the historical threads linking the slave plantations to the abuses of modern policing than it does on its purported subject matter.
Jonathan Salem-Wiseman
· 8 min read
Thomas Sowell: Tragic Optimist
In his 2000 memoir A Personal Odyssey, Sowell recounts a parable that was read to him as a young boy and which he never forgot.
Samuel Kronen
· 29 min read
Mailer and the Second Wavers
“The Prisoner of Sex”—in both magazine and book form—was largely a baroque riposte to Kate Millett’s bestselling feminist polemic Sexual Politics.
Charlotte Allen
· 31 min read
Fifty Years of Fear and Loathing
Finding out the truth about any aspect of Hunter Thompson’s life is frustrating given his propensity for self-mythologising.
David S. Wills
· 14 min read
Sex, Drugs, and Antiquity
The underlying assumption of The Immortality Key is that the human need to reconcile itself with death is a core element of religion.
Clifton Ross
· 10 min read
The Enduring Relevance of Czesław Miłosz’s ‘The Captive Mind’
It is into such pathologies that The Captive Mind delves, and why it has such application to our time.
Robin Ashenden
· 11 min read
We Can Revisit (And Even Replace) the Classic Books We Teach Children—Without Cancelling Them
Allan Stratton
· 15 min read
Before 'Groundhog Day': The Time-Loop Novel that Started It All
On March 4th, the Ringer, a website that covers pop culture, featured an article entitled “We’re in a Time Loop of Time-Loop Movies.” Similar articles have appeared in many other pop-culture venues of late. Suddenly, time-loop stories seem to be everywhere. This month Hulu began streaming director Joe Carnahan’
Kevin Mims
· 11 min read
The Problem With Linking Censorship to Incitement
In any case, I do not share the view that to restrict speech necessarily diminishes the spread of ideas.
Claire Lehmann
· 11 min read
Against Dilettantes
The reason these books endure and will be read long after the writers of littérature engagée harping on a string of fashionable social trends are ridiculed and forgotten, is their aesthetic impact.
Elena Shalneva
· 9 min read