Book Reviews

In short: “What does this have to do with the world that I know?”  But after delving into it, I came to realize just how relevant it is; and not only in the negative sense.

Though I decided long ago to maintain some degree of skepticism where any historian is concerned, I enjoy and trust Paul Johnson above the rest.

The sheer originality of “Wise Blood” is, for me, one of its strongest attractions. It is an amazing grace tale that is simply inimitable—and amazing.

Nikolai Gogol published his great novel, “Dead Souls”, in 1842. The plot concerns a man named Pavel Ivanovich Chichikov, who buys dead serfs from various landowners; not the cadavers of these serfs, rest assured; only their names.

Published in 1962, A Clockwork Orange might soon have been forgotten had it not been made into a celebrated and notorious Stanley Kubrick movie.

The story as a whole is consistently compelling; it is witty, thoughtful, and in the end quite moving.

Readers should not expect realism from this book. The Soviet and Nazi regimes served only as raw material for a work that is in large part fantastical.

I was nineteen and taking an English class at a local university when I read Homer’s epic for the first time.

The plot concerns a man named John Russell. He is a non-Native American who was raised as an Apache; and if you want an example of stoicism or “grace under pressure”, here it is.

Francis Marion Tarwater, a fourteen-year-old hillbilly, is the main protagonist of O’Connor’s second novel (published in 1960).