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Lunatics, Lovers and Poets: Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare Edited by Daniel Hahn and Margarita Valencia Introduction by Salman Rushdie Los Angeles: And Other Stories, 2016. Paperback.Links: Introduction by Salman Rushdie at the NewStatesman “The Dogs of War” by Juan Gabriel Vásquez at the Irish Times “Shakespeare, New Mexico” by Valeria Luiselli in Guernica […]
A few years ago, Dr. James Lacey, professor of Strategic Studies at the Marine Corps War College, contacted me about my series of posts on Thucydides. It was and remains one of the high points in blogging for me. So I wanted to share a recent article of his that looks at the difficulty in […]
Lost Children of the Empire by Philip Bean and Joy Melville The Untold Story of Britain’s Child Migrants Unwin Hyman Limited (London); 1989 ISBN: 0-04-440358-5 In 1618, a group of orphaned and destitute children left Britain for Richmond, Virginia in the United States. It was the start of an extraordinary era in British history, formally […]
The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg Groeling Emerging Civil War Series Savas Beatie; Fall 2015 192 pp.; 211 images ISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4 I first became aware of this book when our local bookstore was touting an upcoming talk by its author, Meg Groeling. I wasn’t able to make that […]
The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead by Meg GroelingEmerging Civil War SeriesSavas Beatie; Fall 2015192 pp.; 211 imagesISBN: 978-1-61121-189-4 “After the battle, what did they do with all the bodies?”— common question from U.S. Civil War battlefield visitors I recently stumbled across the Emerging Civil War Series, which […]
Next school year I want to go through parts of the Bible with my boys, focusing on literature aspects of it. That is, if they’re going to fully understand authors such as Faulkner, Melville, Lincoln, Marilynne Robinson, (and many others), they need to be grounded as to what’s in the Bible and the language of […]
I am such a huge fan of La Regenta by Leopoldo Alas that I tracked down several of his out-of-print English translations and devoured them, too. So I was extremely happy to see NYRB will be releasing His Only Son with a new translation by Margaret Jull Costa this fall. (Nice to see I have […]
Last night my wife and I went to see the 2015 movie Bill, which has the tagline of “How Bill became Shakespeare.” As far as I know, this was the only U.S. screening before its DVD release in the states next month. Thanks to Fathom Events for another wonderful media experience. If you’re familiar with […]
Killing Eratosthenes: A True Crime Story from Ancient Athens by Debra Hamel CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform: 2016 (978-1523995691) My first introduction to Debra Hamel was with Reading Herodotus: A Guided Tour through the Wild Boars, Dancing Suitors, and Crazy Tyrants of The History, a great introduction to one of my favorite books, The Histories (and […]
I stumbled across a copy of The Realists: Eight Portraits by C. P. Snow (Scribners, 1978) in our library and promptly checked it out when I saw Benito Pérez Galdós listed. I had no idea this existed, so I wanted to pass this on. I thoroughly enjoyed Snow’s essay and highly recommend it for readers […]