Book Reviews
Chuck Palahniuk’s Damned: Damned if you do
By Christine Schofelt, January 4, 2012
Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club) has made a career of trying to be the literary equivalent of a “shock jock.” His latest novel, Damned, takes us on a journey characterized by contrived and banal disgust.
That Deadman Dance—an imaginative story about indigenous Australians and European settlers
By Gabriela Zabala, December 22, 2011
Kim Scott’s novel uses poetic and creative lyrical prose, cleverly shifting between the ‘voices’ and consciousness of the European settlers and the Noongar.
Exciting and engaging: Richard Dawkins’ The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True
By Christine Schofelt, November 12, 2011
In his latest book, written for young people, evolutionary biologist and author Richard Dawkins shows how—and why—to fall in love with reality.
Woman as animal: Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River
By Janel Flechsig, October 21, 2011
Bonnie Jo Campbell came to national attention in 2009 with her short story collection, American Salvage, which became a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent novel, Once Upon a River, was released in July.
Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour Leader
A transparent attempt to rebrand Labour
By Dave Hyland, September 13, 2011
Ed: The Milibands and the making of a Labour Leader (Biteback Publishing, ISBN: 978-1-84954-102-2) is less a biography than an extended memo, written by Mehdi Hasan and James Macintyre from the standpoint of explaining to disappointed supporters of David Miliband how his younger brother, Ed, won last year
Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director—a new biography of a major American filmmaker
By Charles Bogle, September 12, 2011
In writing Nicholas Ray: The Glorious Failure of an American Director, biographer Patrick McGilligan has performed the valuable service of tracing the fitful arc of a great and troubled director’s life and career.
Correspondence
A letter: Some thoughts on author Stan Barstow (1928-2011) and postwar British social realism
August 29, 2011
Stan Barstow, who died August 1, was best known for his 1960 novel A Kind of Loving.
Book Review
Guantanamo: My Journey—David Hicks exposes torture and government criminality
By Richard Phillips, May 19, 2011
Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks has written a valuable exposure of the barbarities perpetrated against him by the US military and Canberra’s role in his illegal detention.
Inside WikiLeaks—an attack from a former supporter
By Johann Müller, April 1, 2011
Domscheit-Berg, a former employee of WikiLeaks has written a book which seeks to discredit the whistle blowers’ web site.
A remarkable glimpse at art and politics in Depression America
A review of American Letters 1927-1947: Jackson Pollock & Family
By David Walsh, March 24, 2011
American Letters 1927-1947 is a fascinating volume that sheds light in particular on the Depression years in the US and some of the intellectual and artistic trends that emerged during that harsh era.
An interview with Sylvia Winter Pollock
By David Walsh, March 24, 2011
A conversation with the co-editor of American Letters 1927-1947: Jackson Pollock & Family
The Guardian’s hatchet job on Julian Assange
By Robert Stevens, March 10, 2011
WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, published by the Guardian newspaper, is a politically-motivated hatchet job aimed at discrediting Assange and facilitating his persecution.
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