Elliot Milco: My reading habits have been changing lately. Early in the winter I picked up and dropped a long list of books, including Ulrich Volker’s new Hitler: The Ascent, Carlos Eire’s Reformations, John Le Carré’s The Pigeon Tunnel, and the Cambridge Concise History of Japan. All . . . . Continue Reading »
Here are some awesome books that you should be reading, or thinking about buying, for Christmastime. Continue Reading »
I've been immersed in Shakespeare's King Lear, but not solely as a text on a page. I'm acting in a production of the play here in New York City, playing the King of France and the Servant who stands up to Cornwall in the famous eye-gouging scene. Continue Reading »
On my honeymoon in Venice and Rome, I read Crosstalk, the latest novel from scintillating sci-fi writer Connie Willis. Like other Willis novels, this book uses a science fiction premise to season a screwball comedy. Here our heroine juggles romantic misadventures and the sudden, unwanted gift of telepathy.
Continue Reading »
I've spent much of my free time over the past two weeks watching the AMC series The Walking Dead. I had avoided the series for some time on account of its gore, but since starting it I have (with some prudent skimming and skipping) found it engaging and reasonably thoughtful. Meanwhile, on the strength of Eamon Duffy's review in the current issue of First Things, I have been reading Carlos Eire's new history Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650. Continue Reading »
This week I’ve been reading the first volume of Volker Ullrich’s new biography Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939. A second volume, which will presumably cover the years from the beginning of World War II to Hitler’s death at his own hand in mid-1945, has not yet been published.
Continue Reading »
Mark Helprin’s The Pacific and Other Stories is the book. It is a powerful grouping of diverse tales that take place on different continents, at different times, and among different people. What is common to them all is the effect they produce ... Continue Reading »
It is a common thesis that the social/sexual changes of recent years are the flowering of the Sixties. This makes the best commentators and essayists of that era worth rereading. Continue Reading »
Kingsley Amis once said, “If it doesn't begin with ‘A shot rang out,' I don't want to read it.”
Continue Reading »
At the First Things retreat last weekend, Robert Louis Wilken delivered a somber and moving address about friendship. Wilken emphasized the need for a founding bond that is more than just personal, one that touches agreement on some fundamental questions of being and life. His words . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
