Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life
Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life by Theodor W. Adorno My rating: 5 of 5 stars It helps to know that this 1951 book, an unclassifiable philosophical masterpiece consisting … Continue reading
Wesley Yang, The Souls of Yellow Folk
The Souls of Yellow Folk by Wesley Yang My rating: 4 of 5 stars It was once a pop-socio-psychological commonplace of American foreign-policy commentary that terrorism on behalf of political … Continue reading
Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others
Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag My rating: 3 of 5 stars Susan Sontag’s oeuvre is a long palinode. Identified for years with the positions she took, or … Continue reading
Samuel Johnson, Selected Essays
Selected Essays by Samuel Johnson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This Penguin Classics collection of essays by the great English critic and moralist Samuel Johnson is devoted largely to … Continue reading
Nicholas Mirzoeff, How to See the World
How to See the World: An Introduction to Images, from Self-Portraits to Selfies, Maps to Movies, and More by Nicholas Mirzoeff My rating: 3 of 5 stars Mirzoeff self-consciously updates … Continue reading
Against Celebration: Bloomsday vs. Dallowayday
Two years ago, Elaine Showalter suggested that we balance Bloomsday (June 16, the day whereon Joyce’s Ulysses is set) with Dallowayday: Like Joyce’s Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway is set … Continue reading
Albert Murray, The Hero and the Blues
The Hero And the Blues by Albert Murray My rating: 5 of 5 stars Albert Murray is, as the fashion journalists say, having a moment. His collected non-fiction and fiction/poetry … Continue reading
Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson My rating: 2 of 5 stars This theory-inflected memoir of “(queer) family making,” to quote the jacket copy, so assiduously defends itself that there is … Continue reading
My Year in Books, 2017
But let’s start with movies. Ten years ago, the Scottish musician and critic Momus observed that one of the most acclaimed films of 2007, Guillermo del Toro’s Spanish-Civil-War fantasy Pan’s Labyrinth, … Continue reading
Claudia Rankine, Citizen
Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine My rating: 3 of 5 stars Citizen is a prose-poetry compendium of racial microaggressions aimed at a poetic speaker who nevertheless speaks in … Continue reading
