Milo and the Calf

Tag: book reviews

  • Bowden’s Killing Pablo

    Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World’s Greatest OutlawMark Bowden Dad book. Tick tock of the rise and fall of Pablo Escobar written by the dude who brought you Black Hawk Down. In hindsight, I don’t know why I even bothered to read this book – I already know more than enough about Escobar and…

  • Morrison’s Beloved

    BelovedToni Morrison I always feel absurd writing these little reviews when what I am reviewing is a work of genius, a masterpiece of literature. Like what do I have to add to the conversation around Beloved? Basically, nothing. I’ll say that it’s massive popularity may lead one to think it’s an easy book. It isn’t.…

  • Koeppel’s To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession

    To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession  Dan Koeppel A wonderful little memoir of a father and son relationship where the son is a professional journalist and the dad has seen more birds than almost anyone else on earth. This is partly about coming to adulthood and trying…

  • Fleming’s Surviving the Future

    Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market EconomyDavid Fleming Man what an odd little book. In the Spring of 2020 when the NoVo foundation, led by Peter Buffet (yes, that Buffet) drastically changed much of its programing focus a flurry of articles came out about why. A number of…

  • Morrison’s Song of Solomon

    Song of SolomonToni Morrison Of the Morrison novels I’ve read (and I have not read them all, yet!) this is my favorite. It is an absolute work of genius, full stop. Stunning from the first page to the last. I find it hard to explain Morrison’s genius. Yes, she has incomparable technical skill – her…

  • King’s Where Do We Go From Here

    Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or CommunityDr. Martin Luther King Dr. King’s last book and as relevant now as the day he wrote it. It’s easy to forget how radical King was, especially in his final years. Calling not only for Black liberation, but for an end to the Vietnam war, and demanding…

  • Greenlee’s The Spook Who Sat By The Door

    The Spook Who Sat By The DoorSam Greenlee I think I first heard about The Spook Who Sat By The Door maybe twenty years ago, but this was the year I finally read this incredible book. The storyline is well known to the reader of leftist literature – Dan Freeman, a black man, joins the…

  • Mischel’s The Marshmallow Test

    The Marshmallow Test: Why Self-Control Is the Engine of SuccessWalter Mischel You probably know the Marshmallow test. Young children are offered a marshmallow. They can eat it right now. But if they wait, they can get two marshmallows. The children were then tracked through to adulthood and by and large, the children who could wait…

  • Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room

    Giovanni’s RoomJames Baldwin When I was in my twenties, this was a favorite book of a number of friends. I don’t know why I never read it. This is Baldwin at the height of his powers writing with a kind of restraint that makes the themes of the novel even more explosive. I’m not literary…

  • Review: Morrison’s Sula

    SulaToni Morrison Morrison’s second novel. Like every one of her works that I have read, it’s a masterpiece. I really have nothing new to say about one of America’s greatest novelists except to say that what stuck me about Sula was how fully formed the characters are, even those whose appearances are brief, and how…