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Category Archives: Reviews by Bethany
Thoughts on Reza Aslan’s Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth
When I teach and tutor students in history, I often start each unit by advising students to “follow the money.” I didn’t coin that phrase, I know, but it’s a surprisingly simple and effective way to get one’s bearings in … Continue reading
Early Thoughts on Kia Corthron’s The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter
The meaning of the title of this long, engrossing novel starts to come clear around page 138 – well ahead of the 200-page mark at which I planned to start complaining – so of course I wanted to share it … Continue reading
A Review of Erskine Caldwell’s God’s Little Acre
I’ve owned this book for years, and now that I’ve finally read it I feel a little creeped out having lived so long in the presence of such a strange, alarming little book. It’s a good book – a very … Continue reading
A Review of Lesley Hazleton’s After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam
I’ve been interested in the ancient and medieval Middle East for a long time – since I was a teenager, really, but this current flurry of reading on the subject dates back to my reading of The House of Wisdom … Continue reading
A Review of Lois Lowry’s Number the Stars
Two of my tutoring clients were assigned this book for summer reading, so of course it ended up on my reading list as well. If you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you may have noticed that I have … Continue reading
A Review of Larry Watson’s Justice
I loved this book – probably more than any other book I’ve read this year. This is one of those collections of linked stories that masquerade as a novel. I actually like it better when I think of its chapters as … Continue reading
Thoughts on the Silliness of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors and the Pleasures of Seeing It Anyway
Back in grad school I was part of a short-lived Shakespeare reading group. Four or five of us met on weekend mornings to read all or part of a Shakespeare play. We started working through the plays in alphabetical order, … Continue reading
Why Don’t I Know More About Italy? – And Other Thoughts (Actually Not That Many Other Thoughts) on Umberto Eco’s Numero Zero
When I was preparing to write this review, I realized that I needed a really good metaphor to describe what it feels like to read a work of social satire from a culture one doesn’t know well. The closest I … Continue reading
A Review of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Beautiful Struggle
Earlier this year I reviewed Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new and highly-praised memoir Between the World and Me, and you can read my review of that book here. The Beautiful Struggle, published in 2008, is just as good. I read it in … Continue reading
Thoughts on Larry Watson’s Laura
Recently I learned that Larry Watson has written other books besides Montana 1948. I’m not sure why this surprised me, except perhaps is that when an author emerges, publishes one book, and then disappears, that one book is often something … Continue reading
Postcards From Purgatory 