I picked up Voices from the Federal Theatre from the library shelf because I’m interested in the Federal Theatre. I didn’t realize that it was an attempt to do a Studs Terkel book on the topic, and although it isn’t…
One of the nice things about a Studs Terkel books is that it comes in nice bite-size chunks, which make it nice to have around and read just two or three pages at a time. Maybe read about Jessie de…
It was probably a mistake to pull The Great American Novel off the shelf for another read-through, but I more or less enjoyed it anyway. Philip Roth must be amused by the idea that if you search Google for “the…
I believe I have mentioned before that our local library has quite a good shelf of graphic novels (as discussed in this morning’s NY Times Magazine article “Not Funnies”by Charles McGrath. I went over and browsed it, eventually discarding both…
First off, when Your Humble Blogger first put God’s Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible on the want-to-read list, it was from a half-heard public radio thing, and not because the author is Harold Nicolson’s grandson. It turns…
It’s always an ethical tight spot when Your Humble Blogger reads an old buddy’s book. On one level, it’s a bit like going backstage; quite aside from the possibility of actually offending the author/friend with sincerely critical points, there’s the…
This time through The Nine Tailors (I do seem to be on a Sayers kick, don’t I) Your Humble Blogger was really interested in the architecture of the church at Fenchurch St. Paul. And, of course, in their 12th Century…
When I read the Mister Monday, the first in the Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, I enjoyed it, more or less, but wasn’t knocked out. Sometime this summer, I bought the second, Grim Tuesday. My recollection was…
Every time I read The Chosen it seems like a different book. The first time, it was a book about two boys and their friendship. The second, probably, it was about the study of Talmud and its place is in…
I don’t now remember how I first came to pick up Vita and Harold: The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson off the library shelf in 1992 or 1993. I suspect I was just interested in collections of letters…