Milo and the Calf

Tag: book reviews

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    Review: Epictetus

    Discourses and Selected Writings Epictetus (trans. Robert Dobbin) (Penguin) Epictetus. Freed slave, logician, and stoic, is one of the many classical writers more often referenced than read. Epictetus’s name is bandied frequently when the subject of stoicism comes up. His writings were extremely influential on Marcus Aurealius (some of the writing attributed to Epictetus exists…

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    Henry VI Part III

    Henry VI Part III (Folger Edition) William Shakespeare I don’t know this for a fact, but I imagine the Henry the 6th plays are among the least performed in the Shakespeare cannon. Written early in Will’s career, they just aren’t very good. The first is really down right awful. It is confusing, poorly plotted and…

  • Review: Pelecanos’s Hell to Pay

    Hell to Pay: A Derek Strange Novel (Derek Strange Novels) George Pelecanos The second book in Pelecanos’s series about P.I. Derek Strange and his sidekick Terry Quinn. Probably even better than the first, this one has less silly shoot ‘em up scenes and more of the grime that is crime in South East D.C. as…

  • Review: Simon’s Homocide

    Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets David Simon You’ve read this right? You have to. The best book on cops ever and its written by the creator of the world’s greatest TV show, the Wire. Baltimore in the early nineties was a violent place, policed by a largely white and often racist police force…

  • Review: Davis’s In Praise of Barbarians

    ed note: originally written for the now defunct Left Turn magazine. In Praise of Barbarians: Essays against Empire Mike Davis I am writing this review as Southern California burns and I cannot help wondering what Mike Davis, the great social critic of Los Angeles, is thinking right now. Mike Davis is among the best of left wing…

  • Review: Pelecanos’s Right as Rain

    Right As Rain: A Derek Strange Novel (Derek Strange Novels) George Pelecanos Pelecanos is the great chronicler of our nation’s capital (Washington, D.C.) as it is lived by its actual citizens. For a crime writer who works in place and character, he is top of his game. This is the first of Pelecanos’s series chronicling…

  • Review: Littell’s The Company

    The Company: A Novel of the CIA Robert Littell A better than average page-turner spy novel tracing the history of the agency through the stories of a group of men who come into it as it was being formed and end up in the upper reaches of the organization. Clearly based on real guys, some…

  • Review: Baer’s See No Evil

    See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism Robert Baer Did you see Syriana? Well, Clooney’s character is allegedly based on Baer. If that’s true, it doesn’t seem to be a very accurate portrayal. What I got out of this book was not the story of a…

  • Review: Collier’s Bottom Billion

    The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It Paul Collier Here is the basic argument – while it sucks to be poor in countries like India, India is heading for relative prosperity, and therefore some hope for its poorest citizens. Where is really, really sucks to be…

  • Review: Feinberg’s Stone Butch Blues

    Stone Butch Blues: A Novel Leslie Feinberg This novel/memoir chronicles the world of a working class lesbian, gay, and transgendered people in New York from the days before Stonewall to the early nineties. It is a classic and was at the time it came out the most important book written to date on transgender issues.…