Let’s begin with a simple disclaimer: everyone is entitled to write a novel. Celebrity or not, influencer or not, no one should be barred from publishing a book simply because they aren’t a “real” writer. This isn’t about gatekeeping. However,…
Herodotus of Halicarnassus conceived of history as a collective act of cultural heritage preservation, an effort “to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced…
Well, it looks as if it’s time once again for my more or less annual piece about Joan Didion. I didn’t set out to make this a yearly tradition. Way back in 2007, I wrote what I thought was a…
Arguably America’s finest writer of the 20th century, Flannery O’Connor was born 100 years ago. Although she has been dead for over half a century, the acclaimed author still remains a target for the cultural vultures of the hyper-progressive left….
We are nearing the culmination of my course in medieval literature at Thales College, reading Dante’s La Vita Nuova, to be followed by his Purgatory, the second of the three divisions of the Divine Comedy, and the one most keenly…
Voices of the Fallen Heroes and Other Stories By Yukio Mishima (Vintage International, 272 pages, $16) There has always been reason to fear The vengeful rage of angry ghosts. …
According to recent reports, if you are a student at the University of Nottingham and you are going to sign up for a course on Chaucer, you will be warned beforehand that you may encounter “expressions of Christian faith.” A…
Seeking something light to read following the Christmas doldrums I decided to look into what I remembered as one of the funniest of Evelyn Waugh’s comic novels, Black Mischief. I discovered that my local library, a large well-stocked one, did…
There’s a sage line in the 1972 Western classic, Jeremiah Johnson, written by the great John Milius. An old mountain man (Will Geer) says it to his former green mentee turned brutal Indian fighter, Jeremiah Johnson (a superlative Robert Redford),…
