Category Archives: Reviews

Tithonus Tears a Testicle

Donald Morrison does everything but “Help the Ageing” in this horribly brilliant series of reviews. Eos, the goddess of dawn, persuaded Zeus to bestow immortality on her human lover Tithonus. But she forgot to ask for enduring youth as well. … Continue reading

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Crime & Review

Read Michael Dirda’s review of a wonderful new condensed version of perhaps the best literary biography of the great Fyodor Dostoevsky ever, and experience, Mystic Terror Revisited.

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On the Origin of Stories

You can’t help but get as excited as Christine when you read her review of Brian Boyd’s great new book. On the Origin of Stories by Christine Boyko-Head “Evolution may help explain copulation and even cooperation, but can it account … Continue reading

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A Streetcar Named Despair

Read this review of a really fascinating new book, Shake the Devil Off: A True Story of the Murder That Rocked New Orleans, by Ethan Brown. Sounds like a grim movie to be made.

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Review of From the Scenic Outlook the Battlefield Churns Beautifully

Below is a review I wrote back in 2003 and had forgotten about. It appeared in Main Street Rag (Winter, 2003) and I just discovered it in an archive on their current MSR Reading Series site. I didn’t have a … Continue reading

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Batshit Insanely Good Review

Esquire Reads Dean Koontz and David Baldacci And more from America’s new literary canon of popular but insipid fiction, so you don’t have to. Here’s what our book critic learned before throwing up a little in his mouth. By Benjamin … Continue reading

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Uncovering a Hiding Man

This weekend I finished reading Hiding Man, Tracy Daugherty’s fantastic new biography of postmodernist Donald Barthelme. Perfect thing to read this past cold, melancholy, drizzled week. The Barthelmes — a most talented family — seem to exist under a slight … Continue reading

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