Summary: Warren Farrell and John Gray’s The Boy Crisis examines how and why boys and men are struggling to survive and thrive in modern life, and seeks to provide a preliminary blueprint for how to reverse this trend. In Part One, Farrell lays out the statistical evidence for the problem, demonstrating how boys and men are failing […]
Hey! Listen up. Let me tell you something. A man ain’t a goddamn ax. Chopping, hacking, busting every goddamn minute of the day. Things get to him. Things he can’t chop down because they’re inside. ––Toni Morrison This passage from Beloved sums up the central message of Terrence Real’s I Don’t Want to Talk About It with uncanny […]
The Will to Battle, the penultimate installment of Ada Palmer’s Terra Ignota Quartet, is somewhat stranger than its predecessors but every bit as brilliant and entertaining. It’s an in-between tale––a bridge from one place to another. Such stories always run the risk of being needlessly convoluted or just tiresome, but Palmer manages to keep the pacing and […]
Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels deserve every bit of the intense praise heaped on them by critics and readers. Even though I have only finished two of the four novels, it seems undeniable to me that this series occupies a superior position in 21st-century literature. The second book picks up right where My Brilliant Friend left off, with all the […]
It feels sad to admit that Gabriel García Márquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold had a repellent effect on me. In many ways, it seems like a book I should love: artful in structure, brooding in tone, and concerned with humanity’s singular knack for committing sins of stupidity. But alas, the experience was hijacked by a familiar […]
Months ago, my decision to purchase this book was an act of intellectual calculation. I’d heard an excellent recommendation on a podcast, and believed dipping into the mind of Adrienne Rich would be edifying. In the wake of the recent election, however, I grabbed this collection of essays off my bookshelf in an act of […]