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Category Archives: Nonfiction – Literary Studies
A Review of John Kaag’s American Philosophy: A Love Story
If nothing else, this memoir will make book lovers everywhere envious of John Kaag. Some six or seven years before he wrote this book, Kaag was in rural New Hampshire helping to organize a conference on William James. He was … Continue reading
Early Thoughts on David Denby’s Lit Up and on High School English in General
I’ve read almost nothing this week. I’ve been scrambling to finish some freelance jobs and other side work (bacon must be brought home, and so forth – preferably organic bacon), and I have several blog posts in progress, all of … Continue reading
A Review of Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Novels Like a Professor (by Bethany)
Even a bookblogger needs a refresher course sometimes. I’ve found Thomas C. Foster’s books How to Read Literature Like a Professor and Twenty-Five Novels That Shaped America enormously helpful in my work as a teacher and as a reader. I … Continue reading
A Review of James Shapiro’s The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606
I thoroughly enjoyed this intense study of the year 1606 in the life and career of William Shakespeare, though I thought that an equally appropriate subtitle for the book would have been “England in 1606.” I’m not suggesting that Shakespeare … Continue reading
A Review of Richard Rodriguez’s Days of Obligation: An Argument with my Mexican Father (by Bethany)
Richard Rodriguez’s memoir Hunger of Memory has been a favorite of mine ever since I first read it as a freshman in college. The American-born son of Mexican immigrants, Rodriguez wrote in that book about juggling two cultures: the close-knit, … Continue reading
A Review of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
I’m a little sorry that Feminism Month is almost over. I knew from the beginning that my goals were too ambitious, but I’m still sorry I didn’t reread Mating, which is one of my favorite contemporary novels, and I also … Continue reading
Thoughts on Eudora Welty’s One Writer’s Beginnings
If this were 2012 or 2013, I would not be writing a review of this book. Back then, I was reading at a ridiculously rapid pace and only reviewing between a half and three quarters of what I read. I … Continue reading
Some Brief Thoughts from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own
I had hoped to be finished with A Room of One’s Own by now, and I was going to write about Woolf’s manifesto side by side with Alice Munro’s story “The Office.” But it’s well past dinner and I still … Continue reading
A Review of Salman Rushdie’s Joseph Anton: A Memoir
I just found out this week that back in high school Jill thought I was “so cool” because I owned a copy of The Satanic Verses. This is how lucky I’ve been in my life: by fifteen, I had found … Continue reading
Postcards From Purgatory 