Hollywood and the Academy of Motion Pictures and Sciences have finally woken up and acknowledged that woke programming doesn’t resonate with their audience. After delivering politically charged, yet snooze-inducing Oscar award ceremonies to a declining viewership for many years, the…
Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World By Malcolm Harris (Little, Brown and Company, 720 pages, $36) Some might wonder why a conservative would choose to read and review California native son Malcolm Harris’ Palo Alto: A…
El hombre de la multitud: Edgar Allan Poe y la ciudad Por Scott Peeples (Princeton University Press, 224 páginas, $25) El escritor Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) pasó toda su vida buscando un lugar al que pudiera llamar hogar. Nacido…
Roald Dahl: Teller of the Unexpected: A Biography By Matthew Dennison (Pegasus Books, 272 pages, $24) The iconic children’s book writer Roald Dahl (1916–1990) concluded his last book, The Minpins (1991) with these poignant words: “And above all, watch with…
Dinner with Joseph Johnson: Books and Friendship in a Revolutionary Age By Daisy Hay (Princeton University Press, 516 pages, $32) From 1760 to 1809, British bookseller and publisher Joseph Johnson (1738–1809) hosted a weekly dinner at his London home and…
Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna Edited by Noah Isenberg; translated by Shelley Frisch (Princeton University Press, 224 pages, $19 paperback) How did Billy Wilder (1906-2002) become the Hollywood legend who created such film classics…
The promise of a new year is that we have another chance to start fresh and recommit ourselves to our long- and short-term goals. The new year also means that we may be blessed with pleasant surprises. We may find…
“Oh, Christmas isn’t just a day, it’s a frame of mind,” Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) tells the second-grader Susan Walker (Natalie Wood) in the perennial holiday classic Miracle on 34th Street (1947). Sometimes, we get too caught up in our…
Color Capital of the World: Growing Up With the Legacy of a Crayon Company By John W. Kropf (The University of Akron Press, 146 pages, $25 ) An innovative company led by visionary leaders can transform an industry, create a…
Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers By Emma Smith (Penguin Random House, 352 pages, $28) We are what we read. Such is the central claim of Emma Smith’s new book, Portable Magic: A History of Books and…
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