No surprise that we live in a world full of junk science, unhelpful self-help, and freakish social sciences—which makes culling the valuable from the vapid somewhat perilous. Not that my approval in these areas is should be construed as a warranty of validity. Fortunately, Dr. Louann Brizendine, whose
In spite of a conscientious indifference in the more reactionary and confused quarters of the American polity, that pesky Vietnam thing still lingers in the ether, foreshadowing and resonating and doing everything except fading into the obscurity Americans generally ignore known as history. Fortunately, or inshallah, the history has been
As it is a birthday of sorts (there is a story here, but you will have to wait for the publication of my memoir-in-progress, Just Talking: How to Have Fun With Words), I am taking an opportunity to offer some personal observations (as opposed to the barely disguised
Having succumbed to the old-fashioned precept that a liberal education was useful for more than vocational guidance and career enhancement, I chose to study philosophy as an undergraduate, more specifically various tributaries of logical positivism that flowed from that Amazon river of 20th-century philosophy, the Vienna Circle. Of
Avante-garde composer John Cage's composition 4’33” created at the midpoint of the twentieth century, was conceived of without a single musical note. In his monograph No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage’s 4’33”, composer and Bard music mentor Kyle Gann writes: 4’ 33” Gann
Had friend David Meggesey, author of the highly regarded Out of Their League (selected by Sports Illustrated in 2002 as one of the top 100 sports books ever written) and former NFL Players Association apparatchik not recommended Rus Bradburd’s Forty Minutes of Hell: The Extraordinary Life of Nolan Richardson
OK, I admit that I am blind to the allure of books about food, chefs, or most of what seems to excite the foodie partisans of the reading world. I did enjoy Amanda Hesser’s romance memoir and Barbara Haber’s social history, From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon
Brit foreign correspondent Rob Crilly (currently covering East Africa for The IrishTimes), having covered wars in Darfur, Somalia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, has spent five years in Sudan, and his book, Saving Darfur: Everyone’s Favourite African War (Reportage Books), both clarifies a conflict that he convincingly argues
David Kirby (The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems), who is a poet by profession (as in calling, not career), put together an extended hagiographic essay on the life of one Richard Wayne Penniman, Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll (CONTINUUM BOOKS)—Richard, a favorite son
Arguably there are two sure-fire subjects that will get you a book contract: the current (everlasting) educational crisis and depression. And if you are a discerning reader (which, for the purposes of this small discussion, is one who is not enthralled by self-helping snake oil hucksters) interested in
