Prose

I have thought and argued, for some time now, that we are the same people that we always were – i.e., that aside from various technical innovations, were we to meet someone from ancient times we would have more in common as human beings than we might think. After all, if we got into a time machine and went back only 100 back-to-back 60-year life spans, we would find ourselves in 4,000 something B.C. Only three of those sets us down in 1836. Read more about The Swerve

Umberto Eco

Numero Zero is the last novel Eco published before his death earlier this year. It’s relatively short (only 191 pages), and relatively easy reading, for Eco. I did, however, find it less accessible than his longer, likely more esoteric works. Read more about Double Bill

If ever there was a good year to read , 2016 is it. A meticulous social history, Five Points documents the impact of immigration and racism as they impact a New York neighborhood in the mid-19th Century. Read more about The Five Points

I don’t believe there are many ways in which European-Americans can even begin to comprehend the African-American experience as it has played out in this country for the past 400+ years, but one of those few ways is to read fiction by African-American writers. Fiction puts you as inside that experience as folks like me are ever liable to get, and my go-to writer for my smidgeon of understanding is Toni Morrison. Read more about Sula

Some time ago, while reading a history of the Wars of the Roses, I saw that Edward IV’s queen, Elizabeth Woodville, died in 1492. By this time, Henry VII was on the throne, and he will soon be succeeded by his son, Henry VIII. The Wars of the Roses, which had occupied much of England’s 15th century, were over. Elizabeth Woodville, I thought, was the last medieval. Read more about 1492

That’s where David Malouf found room to write his wonderful little novel, . Between the lines of Book XXIV of the Iliad, Malouf has drawn prose pictures of Achilles and King Priam, culminating in the King ransoming the body of his son, Hector, from his killer. In the process, he creates a hero of Priam, a king who wins one battle not with weapons but with an idea. Read more about Between the Lines

I am not the first one to connect Nicola Griffith’s to Hilary Mantel’s , but I did make the connection independently. Both books give me hope that there is a new appreciation for what I’ve come to call “immersive fiction.” Fiction that doesn’t necessarily hinge on a plot or an all-consuming conflict. Read more about Hild

Z is also for Zelda, as in , by Therese Anne Fowler.*

Unfortunately for Zelda, the novel held, for me, little more than a bunch of hot air. I was hoping for more than that. Zelda Fitzgerald deserves more than that. Read more about Z is for Zeppelin

The good news is that it’s all different from last year’s.

Published in 1971, this can be a hard book to find. I found a used copy in very good condition through Amazon, and I'm liking it very much. The "Express" of the title is the Mombasa-Nairobi railroad built in the early 20th century, infamous for attacks from the Lions of Tsavo, who feasted on a variety of African railway workers and even a few white guys. Read more about Reading List, October, 2015

There are things worse than communism, it turned out, and in Iraq we brought them about ourselves. I say this as someone who supported regime change.