Culture Watch

Cleopatra: A Life — In the end, we must ask ourselves if Stacy Schiff, one of the most gifted American biographers currently writing, has successfully peeled away two millennia of myth and propaganda or, rather, given us a new myth, a Cleopatra who fits modern, Western feminist thinking. In the Pursuit of Happiness — To call Maria Kalman's work idiosyncratic isn’t nearly powerful enough to describe what she has produced. It is an explosion of such brilliance that one scarcely knows where to start more »

Christmas at our house is nothing if not traditional. The decorations and timing of our Yuletide celebrations almost never vary, referred to as "the same old Christmas;" same, that is, except for those years when fate takes a hand. more »

The Open Library (an Internet Archive initiative) has just launched a new version of their online ebook reader (aka BookReader) featuring a new user interface and other tools. BookReader allows users read/search more than two million digitized books more »

Of the many non-fiction books on the subject which I have enjoyed reading over the past sixty-five years, I have seldom found one more interesting than Operation Mincemeat. It is a great gift idea for anyone on your list more »