Book review: Young Eliot, by Robert Crawford (Amazon/ Book Depository) What a few weeks it's been for T.S. Eliot, huh? There've been news stories referencing the poet every day: between the much-anticipated release of his letters to Emily Hale, his one-that-got-away who, despite rejecting him, seemed to carry a torch for him anyway; and the... Continue Reading →
The Nostalgia of Coming Home When Everything’s Changed
Book review: Bettyville, by George Hodgman (Amazon / Book Depository) My friends worry that I am falling into a hole here, that this time away is really giving up, running away. Since I lost my job, I don’t know quite who it is I am now. Suddenly I feel older. In New York, my closet... Continue Reading →
Sharp Essays on America’s Social, Political, and Economic Bruises
Book review: The View from Flyover Country, by Sarah Kendzior Amazon An old adage says to write what you know. As a journalist living in a decayed Midwestern city waiting - and waiting and waiting - for the Great Recession to end, that was what I knew. Political writer, analyst and academic researcher of authoritarian... Continue Reading →
Hilarious Truths and Poetic Tales From a Priest’s Daughter
Book review: Priestdaddy, by Patricia Lockwood (Amazon / Book Depository) "We are congregating in the dining room of my father's rectory in Kansas City, where I have returned to live with my parents after twelve long years away...We are penniless and we are exhausted, and in the grand human tradition, we have thrown ourselves on the mercy of... Continue Reading →