nonfiction
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Review of The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
An epic account of a manuscript that might’ve never seen the light of day. Though Greenblatt greatly exaggerates the general influence of said document, the realm of lost classics, buried classics and unrecovered masterpieces has always fascinated me.He takes a Bloomian view of the canon, completely excluding all Eastern cultures…
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Review of The Complete Essays by Michel de Montaigne
A great bedside companion book for weighing down your overburdened nightstand. Good for audiobook as well, for picking up at random places. Amusing musings, profound quotations, and rambling essays on odd and useful topics.Montaigne retired at 38, which in the 16th century was old, and decided he would do little…
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Review Being a Beast: Adventures Across the Species Divide by Charles Foster
Ultimately a pointless book, unless you desire to imagine alternate perspectives in a vague way. You will never be a badger, so what does it matter what a badger thinks when it chews on earthworms? It may help you empathize with badgers, but you don’t need this book to tell…
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Review of Black Boy by Richard Wright
A harrowing memoir of a sensitive artist. Having read most of Wright’s books by now, I wasn’t expecting to be blown over by this as I was.Memoirs don’t often strike home for me, but this may be my favorite of the handful I’ve read.A rounded picture of the author is…
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Review of Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
Didion’s clear and poignant reportage is always thrilling. Here, perhaps, her most famous pieces evoke a now-distant time when America was defined by resistance to war, and droves were trying out the Hippie lifestyle, spawning great protest music and a whole body of literature. Ranging from California, to New York,…
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Review of The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
The book is not long enough. To read it is to drink at the firehose of Burton’s accumulated research.Reading about the book can scarcely convey the experience. Many reviews of it quote from the first 50 pages, where Burton describes his own method and mentality, his madness and genius, the…
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Review of Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I only plan to read a few autobiographies in my life. I would consider reading Mark Twains and Casanova as well. Rousseau’s reputation is immense. As soon as I began listening to the audiobook I felt at home in the author’s style. It was a long and rambling account of…
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Review of Confessions by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I only plan to read a few autobiographies in my life. I would consider reading Mark Twains and Casanova as well. Rousseau’s reputation is immense. As soon as I began listening to the audiobook I felt at home in the author’s style. It was a long and rambling account of…
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Review of Save the Cat! Writes a Novelby Jessica Brody
There are several types of craft books. You can start with The Elements of Style to learn how to avoid many grammatical issues. You can also just use ProWriting Aid. Then there’re structure books, like this one. Finally, there’re industry books, which contain contradictory information from what you read online…
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Review of The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud
Dreams are more interesting in the midst of the fugue. Waking spoils the coherence. Analysis takes some of the fun out of them, even if it nails a few symbols. More intriguing to me are Joseph Campbell’s sort of cultural consciousness archetypes. I feel like there is a lot more…
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Review of Murakami T: The T-Shirts I Love by Haruki Murakami
I began by pretending this was a short novel about a t-shirt and vinyl-record-obsessed old guy, who happened to also be an obscenely successful novelist and it worked for the most part in the sense that I enjoyed reading these table scraps of autobiographical reminiscences from the most influential Japanese…
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Review of Grass on the Wayside by Natsume Sōseki
Droll and heartbreaking by turns, this so-called autobiographical novel was as easy to read as a series of newspaper articles and only slightly more varied in subject matter. Soseki excels at bringing to life realistic situations. Making use of a fragmented style, the book is reminiscent of serial novels. He…
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Review of Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Trevor Noah’s autobiographical “stories” read like reminiscences. There are moments of wit, and some startling descriptions of life under apartheid. It is an especially brilliant audiobook performance from the author as well. There would’ve been no one more qualified or better able to read his work aloud than himself. There…
L. S. Popovich 