Thursday, May 12 2011
The Civil War and the Uneasy Fabric of American Identity
America's obsession with the Civil War reveals not-so-invisible wounds that linger to this day in the landscape and the nation's psyche.
Tuesday, January 11 2011
Life During Wartime: Carl Sandburg’s Poetry of the Macabre
For every moment of brief tedium in Sandburg’s masterpiece, the master suddenly hits the reader with a scene or a moment that is breathtaking in its prose and cold, dispassionate observation of life during wartime.
Wednesday, June 30 2010
Who Is Henry Pym, and Why Are They Saying Such Terrible Things About Him?
Dan Slott has redeemed the founding Avenger and leader of the "Mighty" team, deftly and expertly removing him from the ghetto of mischaracterized misanthropic anti-heroes just in time for the Heroic Age.
Wednesday, June 9 2010
Janes Smiley’s Excellent Prose and Sly Humor are Here in ‘Private Life’
Smiley never writes a book without placing her characters amidst upheaval; here it's war, along with scientific advances and technologies like the telephone, the 1906 earthquake, and the Spanish Influenza epidemic.
Thursday, December 3 2009
Little Women: Brilliant Book, Flawed Film
A scene shows Ryder blissfully tying up the manuscript and putting a rose under the string. That's rather like what Armstrong and the screenwriters did to the film: tied it up neatly with a pretty flower.
Thursday, November 5 2009
The Boy Next Door: A Novel by Irene Sabatini
Sabatini’s book exudes an authenticity and warmth that can’t come from an author’s imagination alone, but from a lifetime of listening and observing.
Wednesday, October 29 2008
The Unhappy Undead
The Civil War is reenacted on a micro level in Night of the Living Dead. Your neighbors are the real monsters.
