All About Me!, to be published on 30 November, will cover everything from the film director’s military service to his long comedic partnership with Carl Reiner. Read more
Category: New Books
If this isn’t the Great American Novel, it’s a mighty attempt at achieving one
A sprawling, ambitious debut novel that is as impassioned in promoting Black women’s autonomy as it is insistent on acknowledging our common humanity. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
The Noosphere Gazette: On Peter B. Kaufman’s “The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge”
Peter B. Kaufman’s rigorous and eloquent new book, The New Enlightenment and the Fight to Free Knowledge, traces the history of this dream of open access to knowledge. It “begins with torture and ends with a vision of another violent civil war. There’s some gun violence, some beheadings, tanks rolling over people, something for everyone.” A recurring problem is the concentration of power. “Archive,” as Kaufman points out, derives from “rule” or “govern,” in the “archon,” the seat of power. Governance and trading require knowledge, so in that sense all economies have been information economies, with all the associated pitfalls. Thus, release of closely guarded information into the public commons is a source of mortal danger to those in power. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
Reese Witherspoon picks ‘The Paper Palace’ by Miranda Cowley Heller for July’s book club
Witherspoon’s take: “I was totally immersed in the fast-paced narrative that seamlessly wove together past and present. And all the beautiful details in this book are enough to pull at your heartstrings… every sentence is so vivid and luxurious you feel like you’re transported to a lakeside retreat in Cape Cod with a family you have known forever. I think you will love this one!” Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen Announce Co-Authored Book ‘Renegades: Born in the U.S.A.’
President Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen will release a joint book, Renegades: Born in the U.S.A., on October 26th globally via Higher Ground/Penguin Random House. Read more
The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream
In his latest, journalist and creative nonfiction professor Jobb richly embellishes his grim central tale with carefully researched setting, detail, and social mores of the late Victorian era, elegantly contrasted with his eponymous fiend, Thomas Neill Cream (1852-1892), “a doctor from Canada” and “a new kind of killer, choosing victims at random and killing without remorse.” Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
A Novel Follows Intersecting Lives on London’s Margins
What initially looks like a collection of loosely linked short stories reveals itself to be an expertly constructed house of mirrors. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
The Man Who Hated Women: Sex, Censorship, and Civil Liberties in the Gilded Age
In this important work of biographical history, novelist Sohn traces the career of Anthony Comstock (1844-1915), special agent to the U.S. Post Office and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. For more than 40 years, Comstock, a deeply Christian dry goods seller from Connecticut, harassed and imprisoned many of the important pioneers in the birth control movement. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
J.P. Morgan’s librarian hid her race. A novel imagines the toll on her
Some books leave you wondering why the author has chosen to tell this particular story, and why now. This is emphatically not the case with “The Personal Librarian,” a novel about the woman who helped shape the Morgan Library’s spectacular collection of rare books and art more than a century ago. It quickly becomes clear why two popular authors, Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray, have teamed up to tell this important, inspirational story. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
Quentin Tarantino Turns His Most Recent Movie Into a Pulpy Page-Turner
Tarantino isn’t trying to play here what another novelist/screenwriter, Terry Southern, liked to call the Quality Lit Game. He’s not out to impress us with the intricacy of his sentences or the nuance of his psychological insights. He’s here to tell a story, in take-it-or-leave-it Elmore Leonard fashion, and to make room along the way to talk about some of the things he cares about — old movies, male camaraderie, revenge and redemption, music and style. He gets it: Pop culture is what America has instead of mythology. He got bitten early by this notion, and he’s stayed bitten. Read more
(We earn a small commission if you click above and buy the book at Bookshop.org)
