Review: The Fire Next Time, by James Baldwin
Rightly considered a classic, this short book was published in the year of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. We should have been able to read it nearly…
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Review: Hitler’s Third Reich in 100 Objects, by Roger Moorhouse
The danger of a book like this one is that it could encourage the fetishistic collection of Nazi memorabilia. There is already a fairly large community of people who collect such things, and some (including…
Review: Hitler’s Hangmen: The Secret German Plot to Kill Churchill, December 1944, by Brian Lett
Brian Lett is the author of a number of excellent works of military history and I looked forward to this one, not least due to the intriguing title. Unfortunately, the title may be a bit…
Review: First to Fight – The Polish War 1939, by Roger Moorhouse
Here is what I think of when I imagine the German invasion of Poland in September 1939: brave Polish cavalrymen with sabres drawn, charging against modern German tanks. Horses versus steel. The problem with that…
Review: The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive, by Philippe Sands
This is history as it should be written. Philippe Sands has taken the story of one Nazi war criminal and turned it into a sprawling tale of love, family, truth, lies and memory. The story…
Review: I Will Judge You By Your Bookshelf, by Grant Snider
Grant Snider loves books. He loves to read them, to write them, to collect them, even to smell them. This wonderful collection of 1 – 2 page cartoons covers every aspect of reading and writing….
Review: The Book of Tbilisi – A City in Short Fiction, edited by Gvantsa Jobava and Becca Parkinson
This short book of ten short stories about the Georgian capital can be read in an afternoon — and what a memorable afternoon that would be. These mostly young authors grew up in independent Georgia,…
Review: Rules for Perfect Murders, by Peter Swanson
An owner of a crime fiction book shop in Boston is visited by an FBI agent. She tells him that a murderer is on the loose, killing people based on a list he posted on…
Review: Will He Go?: Trump and the Looming Election Meltdown in 2020, by Lawrence Douglas
Lawrence Douglas teaches law at Amherst College. If what he says in this short book is right, America is in for a very rocky ride in the next few months. His basic argument is that…
Review: Humankind by Rutger Bregman
I thought Bregman’s previous book, Utopia for Realists, was pretty good. This book is even better. Bregman presents an optimistic view of human beings, and backs this up with many, many examples. He writes like…