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Book Review • 10/19/05
Geneva in London
By Sarah Stodola

"Warner’s in depth knowledge of the many “gin acts” and their accompanying rebellions and riots leaves little doubt that it was gin and not beer that caused all the trouble several centuries ago, and that for nearly a hundred years, gin threatened to squeeze beer and other spirits out of the market altogether..."

8/26/05
Don't Forget About Cunningham: a Review of Specimen Days
By Steve Finbow

"I haven’t read The Hours. Just never got round to it. But I went out and bought it yesterday – cover sans Kidman – on the strength of reading Specimen Days. The narrative is tripartite and consists of In the Machine, set in the late 19th century; The Children’s Crusade set in the present; and Like Beauty, set in the late 21st century. It’s about time, space, and memory."

3/15/05
de Kooning: An American Master
By Sarah Stodola

This biography is of general importance chiefly because it is, surprisingly, the first comprehensive biography of the artist. But it is also a highly enjoyable read – one might even say it’s a page-turner, if books of this genre are permitted to be labeled as such. As a non-artist, I went into reading this 633-page tome fully prepared to be bored silly. But the authors manage to make even the potentially tedious descriptions of the artistic process readable.

1/26/05
Tom Wolfe's University Novel: Worth Reading After All
By Mark Grueter

"Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Charlotte Simmons is that it actually is, for the most part, an accurate depiction of college life from individual perspectives. For this reviewer, it certainly revived more dormant memories of that epoch than anything else I’ve read. For instance, the portrayal of the favorite, local campus bar scene is spot-on. And it certainly reminds me more of college than the slew of movies that deal with campus life in predictably sentimental or farcical and exaggerated ways..."

Scoop
By Evelyn Waugh
Originally Published in 1937

 

Wake Up, Sir!
By Jonathan Ames

 

 

 

Reviewing the Reviewer: Kakutani on My Life, By Chris Fara1

6.2 The Top Ten Novel Titles of All Time, By Sarah Stodola