Anna Faktorovich
Mad Religiosity in a Nosey City
Christopher Clark, A Scandal in Königsberg (New York: The Penguin Press, March 10, 2026). 192pp: ISBN: 979-8-217060-94-8.
***
Chris Clark’s (1960-) Wikipedia does not mention that he wrote this history among his other historical publications. This is “the story of the scandal that took down two Lutheran preachers in the heart of nineteenth-century Prussia… In 1835, Johannes Ebel and Georg Heinrich Diestel were tried for having started a cult. Worse: It was a cult that encouraged scandalous sexual behavior in women, including the daughters of prestigious Prussian families—causing the deaths of two young women from sexual exhaustion. The trial would absorb and polarize the city of Königsberg for half a decade and ruin the lives and careers of its defendants, despite their eventual legal exoneration… Clark… came across the files containing this story three decades ago; it has been swirling in his mind ever since.” It shows “a Königsberg scarred by the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars, where Immanuel Kant had recently inaugurated the theory of consciousness that completely reshaped humanity’s understanding of itself—but where the distinction between reason and fanaticism was now up for grabs…” A miniature history is promised and “a… lesson in the theological and philosophical debates…” It “articulates an unsettling antecedent for our most fiercely litigated contemporary questions of sexual identity, freedom of thought, and who gets to decide what constitutes the truth.”
I took out repetitions regarding different periods in history from the blurb. The opening of the first chapter also restates general ideas that this was a time when famous thinkers were working, such as Kant. The author is self-aware enough to note the significant detail about mentioning where there is a plaque in this city for Kant is to invite tourists there. No explanation is given in this opening paragraph regarding Kant’s relance to the central plot: was he prosecuted for deviance? Did he participate? Later it is explained that Kant had attracted students to the university, but their numbers declined after his death, when the central events take place (10). Instead, Kant’s philosophy is sprinkled in a few later parts of this work, on random points such as “celestial movements”, and if stars revolve around the “spectator” (28). This does not bode well as a history that promises to focus on a specific legal case. The writer fails to integrate or synthesis this philosophy with the case at-hand.
I searched for the “preachers” to find where the meat of the story begins. They are introduced in a paragraph that begins by noting generally that in this city everyone knew each other: this is a lot of empty air (11).
The second chapter seemingly arrives at the point, as it summarizes the dramatic claims made in the blurb adding new details, such as that there was also a “pregnancy out of wedlock”. It is a bit confusing just why a report was written about a preacher leading these sexual adventures (12). The following pages digress into the biography of the overseer instead of explaining just what he was overseeing, and why he cared about peoples’ sexuality. Finally, some new revelations that are relevant appear on page 16: this city was hosting “religious groups… outside the official Church”, including those that would “emphasize the devil”, who were inflicted with “religious madness”. I just finished writing a Mythology textbook, and my conclusion in it is that most religions are a fiction or a “madness”, as opposed to only those that are unofficial. Religions that restrict sexuality, as well as those that prescribe it are equally mad in controlling human behavior.
Overall, this is a pleasantly written book, but it is painfully difficult to focus on this winding narrative. This could have been a very intense bit of legal history if the author focused more on the central case. It is difficult to imagine a reader who has the time to leisurely read about Enlightenment, and the like and yet who would not prefer to read about mostly the actions of the advertised legal study. I would recommend for potential readers to open this book somewhere in the middle and try reading it to see if it finds their interests. For this reason, public libraries might need a copy to invite browsers to look inside.
Why and How an Editor Accepted Books, such as On the Road
Gerald Howard, The Insider: Malcolm Cowley and the Triumph of American Literature (New York: The Penguin Press, November 4, 2025). ISBN: 978-0-525522-05-8.
****
“…Malcolm Cowley is not a household name today, but the American literary canon would look very different without him. A prototypical ‘man of letters’ of his generation—Harvard University, a volunteer in the French ambulance corps in World War I, a rite of passage in Paris after the war—he became one of the few truly influential critics of the 1920s and ‘30s, along with his close New Republic colleague Edmund Wilson. Cowley’s early support of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and their set—and indeed for framing this group in generational terms in the first place—secured his place in literary history. Most people are lucky to be part of a single game-changing era in their careers; for Cowley, it happened again and again. After emerging from the political fray of the thirties badly damaged, he retreated behind the scenes as a tastemaker… The process of canon formation is a murky business, and Cowley was a prime mover in it for the better part of four decades, through the Lost Generation, the Beat Generation, and the counterculture of the sixties. Without him, the odds would be much longer that the names William Faulkner, Jack Kerouac, and Ken Kesey, to name just three, would have ever echoed… An… accounting of the fever graph of a fascinating and multifaceted career in the literary trade that uses that career to tell a much bigger story of how American literature took the course that it did from the 1920s to the 1960s… Howard’s own career as a literary weathermaker is justly acclaimed…”
This blurb is rather cryptic to an outside or general reader. The author is Gerald Howard, who retired a few years ago as the Executive Editor and Vice President of Doubleday Books, which merged with Knopf, and both merged into Penguin Random House in 2009. He has been editing high-ranking authors under this imprint, while also publishing reviews and essays. Howard is writing this book about Malcolm Cowley (1898-1989), who worked as the acquisition editor for Viking Press. Viking used to be an independent press too, but it is now part of Penguin Random. Many authors and editors have swung between Viking and Doubleday, such as King’s shift from Doubleday to Viking after his start in the 1970-80s. Thus, this is a rare book by an editor about an editor that promises to explain this little-mentioned field.
The contents list a significant part of the book spent in Cowley’s youth. I searched for fragments that mention Viking, as this is what interests me. I have been pondering lately why most canonical literature from the past century or so has been of dwindling literary quality, and Cowley is apparently one of the people to blame. The intro mentions fondly that he convinced “his reluctant employer to publish Jack Kerouac’s On the Road” (3). Why is this a counterculture classic? It begins with the narrator announcing that it seems to him that “everything was dead” since his “miserably weary split-up”. The character decides to get on the road, and then does so. What is great about this travelogue? What is unique? Why was this book accepted when denser books might have been rejected? Kerouac is mentioned 211 times in this biography. The first mention is that this novel appeared on Esquire’s chart of top writers. The interesting section begins on page 413, which mentions that this novel’s creation is coated in “misinformation”, which might include that Kerouac “composed it in a days-long bout of frenzied nonstop typing”. But Isaac Gewirtz has objected to this as it took a long time to gestate, and then to “reach print”. Then, curious details are offered that Kerouac “typed… furiously at a 100-words-a-minute, 6,000-words-per-day rate…” This would be reasonable, but then the source claims that he had to “strip off his sweat-soaked T-shirt” after each day’s shift. I cannot imagine any type of typing that generates this much sweat… Perhaps it was hot without air conditioning, but this would not be related to the typing speed. He could indeed finish 125,000 words in 20 days at this speed, but the output would be exactly what it is: not a very good bit of hackwork. The mystery of why people claim to enjoy this book still evades me. He apparently did not even include paragraph breaks: this explains why his editor is the hero in this hack-job. And apparently this guy typed a scroll that was 120 feet long to avoid having to feed new pieces of paper to cut down the writing time. Imagine the poor editor carrying around this scroll, and attempting to transcribe bits from the middle of this endless page (414). This rather exciting editorial commentary is interrupted to go back in time to explain that the gestation and editing of this and previous works. The text becomes rather digressive as youth, and childhood, and another editor are mentioned. There is a claim that Kerouac spent five years doing research tripping around Mexico to research this book. He supposedly spent years in “contemplations and multiple trial runs” with “detailed character sketches and a chapter plot outline”. He had apparently written several partial drafts, and thus was able to hack or transcribe these fragments as part of this brisk 20-day exercise (419). When he saw the scroll, Giroux asked this clearly intoxicated guy how they could manage to “edit this”. The response: “This book has been dictated by the Holy Ghost! There will be no editing!” Kerouac’s “Holy Ghost” was so offended, Kerouac refused to return to discuss editing further. It eventually found a publisher when Kerouac retyped it into a “conventional typescript”. Then it was widely rejected: “This is not a well-made novel…” Oddly when Cowley was queried, without seeing the work, he responds that Kerouac is “the most interesting writer who is not being published today”. The editor claims that Cowley managed to read this novel before it had been submitted to him, and thus accepted it. Cowley had to see past explicit homosexuality to take it on, and convince his publishing house to take it. There was also a threat of libel, since it initially named real people (420-3).
This was a curious read. I recommend for others to browse this book for topics that interest them. Though I am fairly sure this creation story is a fiction that is instead strongly indicating that this novel was ghostwritten: the outburst about the “Holy Ghost”, and Kerouac’s insistence that he could make absolutely no edits himself stresses this. If Kerouac could not afford to pay the ghostwriter for a re-write at-first, and only years later managed to pay him to transcribe it on standard paper… this means the ghostwriter deliberately created the cheapest and speediest draft possible in the first attempt because the writer asked for the lowest cost-per-book possible. And he seems to have only agreed to make edits when it absolutely failed to sell. Or it might have been Cowley who might have been contracted outside his job-duties to transcribe this manuscript, and then would have had a financial interest in completing the editing process, and thus lobbying for this publication. This is a sinister perspective, but my research indicates that most mainstream books are ghostwritten hack-jobs, and this is the reason they are not well-written, and inflict on students a sense that literature is nonsensical, and boring, even when it includes occasional transgressive activities. Though this is a good book since I learned many new details about the editing process, so I am glad I requested it. Those who do not want to see these realities, might believe the surface claims or counter-claims about editorial events.
Pleasant Collection of Historical Illustrations
Amanda T. Zehnder and David M. Brinley, eds., Icons of the Fantastic: Illustrations of Imaginative Literature from The Korshak Collection (New York: Rutgers University Press, October 2025). 172pp: 197 color images (53 full-page plates). ISBN: 978-1-644534-05-2.
*****
“Features artwork by pioneering artists from over 160 years of published works of science fiction and fantasy. The illustrations in the collection appeared on the covers of timeless novels such as the Tarzan series by Edgar Rice Burroughs and classic pulp magazines from the 1930s through 1960s, such as Amazing Stories and Weird Tales. They accompany images of mischievous satyrs, ethereal mermaids, and spell-casting witches for texts ranging from The Tempest, Don Quixote, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland to works by Edgar Allan Poe and H. G. Wells. Alongside essays about famous illustrators such as Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley, contributors engage in a critical reassessment of understudied artists such as José Segrelles, Wladyslaw Benda, Margaret Brundage, and Hannes Bok. The book includes a foreword by Guillermo del Toro,” (Mexican director and writer: Hellboy, Pacific Rim) “a preface by Kevin J. Anderson” (science fiction author: Dune), “an introduction by Michael Dirda” (book critic: Washington Post), “and an interview with renowned contemporary illustration artist Michael Whelan.”
Modern illustration, design and cartoons have sprung into extreme heights with help from software. But they could not have achieved this without an earlier generation figuring out how to speed-illustrate with the simpler tools at their disposal. Thus, this is a very interesting collection for those interested in creating art, or in writing art criticism.
The first chapter that drew my attention is Margaret D. Stetz’s chapter: “Aubrey Beardsley: The Illustrator Who Would Not ‘Illustrate’”, when notes that when this artist was given the “art editorship of the Yellow Book by John Lane”, he “made clear his own vision for this new periodical as a home for autonomous images.” His 1894 intro insisted: “The pictures will in no case serve as illustrations to the letter-press, but each will stand by itself as an independent contribution” (69). This is a very exciting way to start an article about art. Though it is contrary to the reality that Beardsley made many text-assisting designs, as Figures 1.2 and 1.3 demonstrate in the vines that he draws around titles.
The rest of this collection includes many surprising pieces, like “Plate 5. Frank R. Paul… Seeds from Space, 1935”: a curious combination of art, pop, and cartoon humor. On the next page is Brian Froud’s Plage 6: a serious, realistic and fantastic depiction of Voice of the River (1976). There are different materials, and styles represented, some are in black-and-white, others in vivid color. “Plate 10. Virgil Finlay… Other Worlds Science Stories cover, 1956” is photo-realistic, and a bit pleasantly obscene. Though it is drawn-over, whereas “Plate 14… Edmund Emshwiller… Spaceman, 1965” might actually be using a photo of a hand merged with a man’s face photo. These pictures convince readers that art is really the superior tool, whereas writing is a minor assistant. The book-covers really do much of the work that helps screenplays and novels to be rather low on detail in modern times. This book is very inspirational: artists who have veered into criticism, like myself, might find an urge to return to doing practical art while browsing through this.
Great collection with some useful, interesting, and to-the-point articles, and some big-name introductions. This is a book that most types of libraries should have in their collection, and artists probably should have it in their home collection to refer to it as they create art aimed at these or other mainstream publications.
The Chaotic Perspective of ADHD
Chloe Martinez and Lisa Van Orman Hadley, Chaos, Creativity, Completion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, March 2026). $20: 216pp, 6X9”: 8 halftones. ISBN: 978-0-226834-95-5.
***
“Fifteen essays that offer inspiration, encouragement, and advice from accomplished writers with ADHD. A rising number of ADHD diagnoses, particularly among adults, is not only confirmed by medical studies and mainstream reporting but also borne out across social media and elsewhere among people who’d been privately coping with persistent, often inexpressible challenges. Many of the contributors to this collection can attest to how a later-in-life diagnosis radically demystified the patterns, impulses, and impasses that had affected their lives and their writing. The essays… reflect the ways poets, novelists, memoirists, filmmakers, and others have come to understand and engage the relationship between their ADHD and their creative tool kits. These essays consider how writers can embrace rather than mask their neurodifference, offering multiple ways of finding writing practices that work for ADHD brains—including techniques that often look quite different from traditional writing instruction. Some essays are analytical, some are reflective, and some are delightfully weird, employing humor, research, personal narrative, deep description, close reading, and experimental approaches to genre and form. Each essay also concludes with a writing prompt, providing readers with opportunities to expand their own creative toolkits. Finally, the book includes an interview with David Kessler, a licensed therapist and nationally recognized ADHD advocate, and an appendix with a glossary of helpful terms and a list of recommended resources, from books and organizations to apps and gadgets. Just as the experience of ADHD varies from person to person, so, too, do the ways those experiences can be expressed.” It “takes on what writing looks like today.”
Since I am teaching writing this year at DSU, I am interested in the recommendations this collection offers for innovative approaches that I might not have found in other writing-pedagogy textbooks. Though inside this text, it seems that these essays are addressed to helping those with ADHD write, as opposed to helping instructors design lessons that help those with ADHD write. There are some interesting hints on “writing about visual arts”: “ekphrasis”, and going to a location to write with sensory details (61-2). There is a prompt for writing a college essay in one article, which pitches starting with prompts such as: “The memory I am always trying to forget…” Or: “Something that invariably makes me blush…” I doubt these would work well if a teacher assigns these in a class, as students would be naturally embarrassed or re-traumatized to share this information (75). Another piece experiments with withholding essential information, though this makes it very difficult for the reader to work through this content (96).
This is a very difficult topic to handle in any manner. This is a curious approach to it that certainly presents the ADHD perspective in vivid detail. This book is aimed at those suffering from ADHD that need writing-advice, and for those who counsel those with ADHD and need advice on what sufferers are seeing in the world.
A Puffing Biography of Random House’s Founder
Gayle Feldman, Nothing Random (New York: Random House, January 13, 2026). ISBN: 978-0-593978-37-5.
**
“The story of the legendary Random House founder, whose seemingly charmed life at the apogee of the American Century afforded him a front-row seat to literary and cultural history in the making. At midcentury, everyone knew Bennett Cerf: witty, beloved, middle-aged panelist on What’s My Line? whom TV brought into America’s homes each week. But they didn’t know that the handsome, driven, paradoxical young man of the 1920s had vowed to become a great publisher and, a decade later, was. By then, he’d signed Eugene O’Neill, Gertrude Stein, and William Faulkner, and had fought the landmark censorship case that gave Americans the freedom to read James Joyce’s Ulysses. With his best friend and lifelong business partner Donald Klopfer, and other young Jewish entrepreneurs like the Knopfs and Simon & Schuster, Cerf remade the book business: what was published, and how. In 1925, he and Klopfer bought the Modern Library and turned it into an institution, then founded Random House, which eventually became a home to Truman Capote, Ralph Ellison, Ayn Rand, Dr. Seuss, Toni Morrison, James Michener, and many more. Even before TV, Cerf was a bestselling author and columnist as well as publisher; the show super-charged his celebrity, bringing fame—but also criticism. A brilliant social networker and major influencer before such terms existed, he connected books to Broadway, TV, Hollywood, and politics. A fervent democratizer, he published ‘high,’ ‘low,’ and wide, and from the Roaring Twenties to the Swinging Sixties collected an incredible array of friends, from George Gershwin to Frank Sinatra, having a fabulous time along the way. Using interviews with more than two hundred individuals, deeply researched archival material, and letters from private collections not previously available, this book brings Bennett Cerf to vibrant life…”
As a publisher, I am especially interested in publishing biographies. But most readers would probably be interested in who was behind this long list of popular authorial bylines. This is a case where the details in the blurb are thorough and necessary, and little further explanation is needed.
The “Contents” mentions that Cerf climbed quickly in the TV game because he was born rich or with an inheritance and used it to obtain an Ivy League education, while also being a “Play Boy”.
The first chapter of interest is: “8: The Random House”. He decides to publish “art-press books” to be “original”. It begins by summarizing the biography of Pynson Printers’ proprietor. The business of printing, the offices, and typography are described. Lawyers are involved in setting contracts. Though details on just what Bennett did are scares. When deciding on the name Random House, he “pops out” briefly and then returns with it. What’s strange is that Bennet kept repeating this origin story, despite it being a very short story indeed. There is a much longer section to explain the philosophy behind why the author of this book thinks this is a good name, as opposed to any more on just what Bennett did to decide on it.
It is difficult to believe the claims being made because things are very loosely cited. No citation marks appear in the text. And frequently no distinction is made between what Bennett is doing, and what others on his team (such as Don) are doing. The books seems to give credit to Bennett to puff him, while minimizing the input of side-characters in this business success. This is not particularly well-researched, or written. Only those who need to learn everything out there about Random House or Bennett would be able to read much further into this book. But there are some people who might find it helpful, especially those in publishing-marketing.
Another Edition of a Very Old Abbey
Jane Austen, and Marilyn Butler, Northanger Abbey (New York: Viking Penguin, March 26, 2025).
***
“During an eventful season at Bath, young, naïve Catherine Morland experiences the joys of fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who shares Catherine’s love of Gothic romance and horror, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father’s mysterious house, Northanger Abbey. There, her imagination influenced by novels of sensation and intrigue, Catherine imagines terrible crimes committed by General Tilney. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine, this is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen’s works.”
My recently released with Routledge Introduction to the Attribution of Literature re-attributes this text away from Austen and to a male ghostwriter. This changes the perspective on depicted events from a feminist to an anti-feminist tint. With novelistic credits subtracted, Austen lived a life where almost nothing happened, and these credits were added by her brother (perhaps as a tribute to his dead sister) after her death, so she would not have been cognizant of or perhaps willing to accept being credited with this future fame.
This edition is similar to the many that came before it. It is one of the more thorough editions. It includes contextual essays, explanatory notes, and other materials designed to help literature students who might need to write a research paper, or answer essay questions about this book after reading it.
The Introduction offers the standard fairytale version of how this novel came to be published that is echoed across biographies and introductions. The editor ignores the fact that “Austen” supposedly wrote to the publisher about this manuscript as “Mrs. Ashton Dennis”. If the point of concealing her identity was because women were less likely to be accepted for publication, this feminine byline certainly would not have helped. Even pointing out that the “initials of her pseudonym” are spelled out by her as “MAD” does not raise an occasion to question why this woman is so amused by her multiple bylines, unless there is a professional ghostwriter behind these tricks. The fact that a rival company had already purchased this novel and posted an ad for it also does not allay the certainty that “Austen” is who biographers have claimed she is (ix-x). Though these are some curious details that are relatively rare for such introductions. These are followed by more trite comments about the novel being filled with sisters and brothers (xiv). When considering that “Austen’s” novels were reviewed in the top periodicals, there is a note that these had begun reviewing more works by female writers. But the editor does not explain that this profit-motive was the reason these novels were signed as “By a Lady”, as opposed to this gender being a barrier to publication. The British ghostwriting Workshop had a tight control over the periodicals that told the public what books to buy, and this is why they ended up ghostwriting all the canonical texts I tested. It is not feminist, thus, that these picked up these “MAD” novels (xv).
Then, the novel begins, with anti-feminist generalizations, such as: “Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper…” And with a dismissive note that after bringing “three sons… instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as any body might expect, she still lived on—lived to have six children more—to see them growing up around her…” (3). Why would any woman treat another woman’s heroic uber-motherhood with such dismissive terms? When describing the central character, the author observes: “she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother was three months in teaching her only to repeat the ‘Beggar’s Petition…’” (4). She tries music, and cannot “bear it”, and since her mother has not hope her “daughters” can become “accomplished”, she is allowed to quit the attempt. The narrator goes on to accuse this Catherine Morland of having “hated confinement and cleanliness…” Instead, of her mind or artistic ability, the author’s interest picks up when at fifteen, she became beautiful and began dressing to attract attention. This story sends this girl exploring a creepy old house in a puffery of Gothic horror novels, before she becomes an object of marital interest: her only available happy ending.
This is a useful edition, as it is relatively helpful to readers. Though given my findings, students should probably stop reading this novel as part of the canon. It does not help womankind, but rather deflates the feminine identity while pretending to support it.
Conversational Letters from Puffed Musicians
James Drake Edward Smyth, Letters for the Ages: Great Musicians (New York: Bloomsbury Continuum, August 28, 2025). $14.99: 288pp: ISBN: 978-1-399419-48-2.
**
“A collection of letters written through the ages from musicians of all genres, from Mozart to Elton John. For tens of thousands of years, across various civilizations, our species has been creating music. But what is behind the human fascination with music? This new volume in the Letters for the Ages series explores that question through the personal correspondence of history’s most brilliant musical talent, ranging from Hildegaard of Bingen to Amy Winehouse. Spanning from the 12th to the 21st centuries, the letters assembled in this collection combine to delve into musicians’ personal relationship with music and the creative process behind their greatest works of art. Witness your musical idols, warm-hearted and compassionate, arrogant and angry, insecure and egocentric, defeated and morose. The letters give a rare insight into the innermost thoughts of these great musicians who have created some of the most recognizable and beautiful music ever heard. But despite the mass of talent within these pages, these letters also provide the realization that even the most extraordinary music has been created by normal people with everyday worries and preoccupations.”
The “Contents” is usefully organized with relatively long quotes from the main themes of these letters. It would be difficult to surmise the topics covered without these lengthy titles. Though these topics do not really grab interest, as they are self-puffing. Mozart writes that the “whole theater was so crammed that many people were obliged to go away”. A bit more amusing is Chopin’s ironic note about a successful performance that “If the papers flog me so soundly that I can’t show myself in public I have made up my mind to become a house-decorator”. Tchaikovsky notes that he dreams of fame. A more recent artist, Amy Winehouse, is treated with melancholy, as she writes: “I want people to hear my voice and just… forget their troubles for five minutes”.
After a general introduction to Winehouse’s biography, and a photo of her, there is a fragment from her “admissions board of the Sylvia Young Theatre School, 1995”. It is a “Written Assessment” for grade 8. She critically observes herself by confession that her report card is full of: “could do better’s”. As the other people included in this collection she insists: “But mostly, I have this dream to be very famous.” She then mentions more abstract concepts, such as the note about forgetting “troubles”. While this goal was needed for these guys to work towards making it into this book by managing to become famous, I don’t think the lesson is that having this raw ambition is in humanity’s interest.
The next section begins with a reflection about “inspiration” being something that comes from God… This is also not particularly helpful to those who hope to work to become the best.
The conversational style in introductions contradicts using the French version of a title of a book in a heading: those who cannot understand French, are those who might be interested in light introductory content, but the two do not work together. Rameau’s letter from the Royal Academy of Music in 1727 questions the nature of an “academy musician”, who is “concerned with notes and nothing more, preferring “erudition” over “taste”. Though he notes that those who have “feeling” tend to have a range for “a few styles at most”. These are curious philosophical reflections, but are followed with a lot of empty speculations without getting to a direct point. Writers and composers indeed fall into either those who feel, or those who perform a lot of busy hack-work, and without the latter these fields would wither into empty babblings about feelings.
This book should be helpful to musicians who are inspired by other musicians’ reflections, and who might be uplifted, or entertained by learning what their idols believed. I have lost the ability to be inspired by such trivialities. Public libraries will probably benefit from having a copy in their shelves to allow dreamers a chance for reflection.
A Puffing and Stumbling Writerly-Biography of King
Caroline Bicks, Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephen King (New York: Hogarth, April 21, 2026). $29: Hardcover: 304pp. ISBN: 978-0-231220-58-3.
***
“A fascinating, first-of-its-kind exploration of Stephen King and his most iconic early books, based on groundbreaking research and interviews with King—all conducted by the first scholar to be given extended access to his private archives. After Caroline Bicks was named the University of Maineʼs inaugural Stephen E. King Chair in Literature, she became the first scholar to be granted extended access by King to his private archives, a treasure trove of manuscripts that document the legendary writerʼs creative process—most of them never before studied or published. The year she spent exploring King’s early drafts and hand-written revisions was guided by one question millions of Kingʼs enthralled and terrified readers (including her) have asked themselves: What makes Stephen King’s writing stick in our heads and haunt us long after we’ve closed the book? Bicks focuses on five of his most iconic early works—The Shining, Carrie, Pet Sematary, ʼSalemʼs Lot, and Night Shift—to reveal how he crafted his language, story lines, and characters to cast his enduring literary spells. While tracking King’s margin notes and editorial changes, she discovered scenes and alternative endings that never made it to print but that King is allowing her to publish now. The book also includes interviews Bicks had with King along the way that reveal new insights into his writing process and personal history. Part literary master class, part biography, part memoir and investigation into our deepest anxieties…—authorized by Stephen King himself… But it’s also a story about a grown-up English professor facing her childhood fears and getting to know the man whose monsters helped unleash them.”
I read King’s autobiography, On Writing (it is quoted in the opening page: a line about pleasing at least “some… readers”), some years ago, and then returned to it in following years. When I first read it, it seemed to be communicating some deep new insights. On a second reading, I realized he was filling the pages with platitudes and avoiding confessing the realities of the speed-writing process. Now, instead of writing about himself, he has found somebody to puff him from a third-person perspective, so I had to look inside this book. The final note in the above blurb regarding the author including many autobiographical reflections forecasts this is not a book that anybody else would enjoy as much as this author themselves.
The “Introduction” did surprise me a bit. It opens by pointing out that the author did not have much contact with King, in part because there were rumors “he’d become a recluse since his near-fatal accident in 1999”. Though, not surprisingly, she goes on to gush about when he finally deemed to meet her four years into her slow research of his biography, when he called her. Then, he agrees to talk to her college class. It is rather odd that he drives her to this meeting. She stresses that she’s extremely nervous abut this meeting, instead of quoting just what he said during his lecture. Everybody is fan-boying about this guy. She does not quote exactly what King answered to questions. For example, about outlines, she paraphrases that he said: “When there are multiple characters who are initially unrelated to each other, that can get tricky…” This is hardly helpful. And why isn’t she recording this, as this would obviously be content for her book? Then, he starts telling him about where his wife grew up: a bit inappropriate… Then, she digresses into Aristotle, Oz, and TV stuff. And she digresses into her own childhood. “Chapter One: Pet Sematary” opens with going “to the archives” without having “decided where I’m going to start.” This is not a good way to start a chapter: nobody cares about where a writer fails to come up with ideas. They want to read the meat of the idea that they eventually found. Instead of reading the materials, she decides to “re-create… sensory experiences” from the novels. This is not good. Later in this book, there are denser sections with details about King’s writing process. Though there are odd details here. For example, she finds maps in one manuscript, and when she asks King about these, he says that he did not make them, but rather his “old friend Christopher Chesley”: a childhood friend of King’s. Instead of explaining more about who this friend is, or why his maps are in a manuscript (outside their childhood), she puffs how amazing it is that King still remembers this friend’s handwriting. And she notes that King did not incorporate any of Chesley’s noted suggestions. But the maps seem designed “to help King keep track of his characters’ movements.” This is odd. Either the artist designed maps and notes on a contract from King, or he sent free help, and King used some of it without credit, while dismissing other bits. If she thought the maps might have been King’s they are probably in King’s hand, so it would be strange for King to have denied making them.
There are probably a lot of curious details about King and his writing process in these pages, but they are coated in a lot of digressive nonsense. A reader would need to have a lot of stamina to dig through this semi-edited archive to find the facts that might form a coherent idea about King or writing. Those who are interested in this digging expedition, are welcome to try. Libraries that carry King’s novels, would probably benefit from adding this book to their collection to help those who want to learn a bit more about this apparently semi-recluse author.
A Puffery of a British Monarch’s Biography
Anna Whitelock, The Sun Rising: King James I and the Dawn of a Global Britain, 1603-1625 (New York: Viking, October 28, 2025). $35: Hardcover: 448pp, 6X9”. ISBN: 978-0-525429-54-8.
***
An “account of the reign of King James I, who united Britain and made England the global power we know today. The British monarchy of today descends directly from one leader: King James I, whose… influence launched England as a major international trade power, established the King James Bible, and united the royal families of Scotland and England under one house and one monarch. Along with his wife, Anna of Denmark, and his children—Henry, Elizabeth, and Charles—James sought to broker agreements between the warring Catholic and Protestant princes in Europe and establish an era of peace. Instead, James set the groundwork for his children to grow up and champion a militant Protestantism that plunged the entire continent into religious war. At his ascension, England was economically behind, but James’s global ambitions began to shift the tide: As ships departed London for America, Russia, Persia, India, and Japan, the fledgling East India Company began to intertwine ever closer with the crown. And James himself was dogged by scandal, running a court famously reputed for vice and venality. But his court was also rich in art, drama, and literature. Shakespeare’s King Lear and Macbeth—said to have been inspired by James himself—were both first performed at the Jacobean court.” Set between 1603-25, a “portrait of the royal family and a story of dynastic power politics, which ultimately and viciously split Europe.”
I explain who the ghostwriters are who manipulate these events across my BRRAM series. William Percy helped maneuver James I into power: he was far from the next person to the throne. Percy’s brother, father and other relatives who had been the Earls of Northumberland had been imprisoned, assassinated and executed over claims of rebellious-intent or attempts across the preceding and these decades. The Percys had hoped to fix their plight by placing a Scot on the throne and uniting the kingdoms, but James proved to be too interested in personal profit from selling offices and the like, to help those who helped him directly. Percy staged one of his self-attributed plays shortly after James I took the throne, and initially rewarded them with a house, but then shortly thereafter imprisoned Percy’s brother, who remained imprisoned until after James’ death. Since the above “Shakespeare” tragedies were mostly ghostwritten by William Percy, he certainly had James in mind when he wrote them, but it is not a flattering portrait.
There are 13 mentions of different “Percy’s” in this book. Sir Charles Percy was serving on the Privy Council when Elizabeth I died. Henry Percy, William’s later imprisoned brother, “had warned James” there was anti-Scottish sentiment in the populace, which could be controlled by “superiors”. Then, Thomas Percy (gentleman pensioner and Henry’s cousin and patron) was implicated in the Powder Plot that took place shortly after James’ ascension. The plan was to blow up the House of Lords. Percy was the one who rented the building that would have been the entry-point. Henry was sent to the Tower for his association. Thomas was killed during the attempt. Then, in 1612, George Percy was the captain of the Jamestown fort who led the Anglo-Powhatan war, or an attack on a native village near the British settlement.
This book takes a puffing perspective on James. It claims he attempted to fix “unjust monopolies… delay of justice”, “‘corruption’ in the church” and heavy “taxation… of the poor”. James did the opposite, as he created deeper corruptions, increased taxation, and increased wasteful spending, while further delaying “justice”. Though there is a mention that “Harrington”, somebody who ended up in debtor’s prison in 1603, perceived “the carousing at Theobalds as proof of the corruption of the court under James”, unlike under his “godmother, Queen Elizabeth”. My research indicates corruption continued from Elizabeth’s reign through the 1930s, as only those who hired ghostwriters managed to access the press (for example). But this history’s author seems to conclude claims of corruption are unjust.
Overall, this is a pretty thoroughly researched book that puffs up James and his reign, and mentions some elements of it that are rarely mentioned elsewhere. Elizabeth has been a more popular subject of research, whereas James has indeed been rather rarely covered. This book is a fit for academic libraries, to allow access to it by graduate students working on this subject.
How to Get Away with Murderous Espionage
Samuel M. Katz, The Architect of Espionage (New York: Scribner, November 25, 2025). $31: 432pp. ISBN: 978-1-668059-74-6.
***
“…Biography of Meir Dagan” (1945-2016), “the legendary Mossad director who transformed Israel’s intelligence service into a global powerhouse of espionage and counterterrorism… The life of Meir Dagan, a visionary covert warfare veteran who revolutionized the art of intelligence and espionage. Born in the shadows of the Holocaust, his life personified the modern history of the Jewish people and the State of Israel.” This is a puffery that claims Dagan contributed some unusually shrewd calculus that created the inflated image Mossad has today. “His tenure as the head of the Mossad marked a transformative era in Israel’s history, reshaping the agency into a formidable global force… He spent thirty-two years in uniform, and under his eight-year leadership, Mossad orchestrated a series of high-stakes missions, including targeted assassinations, clandestine attempts to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power, and the covert expansion of Israel’s strategic collaborations with members of the global intelligence fraternity, notably with the CIA… Drawing on unprecedented access to Dagan’s closest confidants, comrades in arms, and contemporaries in the international intelligence community, Katz brings to life the portrait of a spymaster…” There are few sources directly quoted in this text, but there are some photos from warzones and the like at the end: so, the access might have been to these images, as opposed to any citable information. The claim is that this book “delves into the intricate details of Dagan’s strategies…” But most of the text instead digresses into widely known propaganda on these conflicts. “More than a biography—it is the history of the Jewish state told through the life of one of its most incredible warriors, spy chiefs, and, ultimately, statesmen…”
The first thing I looked up is “nuclear” to learn just how this guy could have prevented Iran’s nuclear ambitions. There are a few generation mentions of this threat. There are no quotes from sources amidst these mentions. When addressing what he might have actually done in this regard, the main idea is launching a “unilateral… preemptive strike” to stop the imagined Iran’s “march” before it arrived at evidential proof of marching. His big contribution was not arguing for this approach hard enough: he did give it a try, but did not convince authorities in this approach. Across the following sections there are repetitions of the that Iran has “nuclear ambitions”, without proof of this, or just what the strategy to stop this threat was. There is a mention that Russian spies had learned the Islamic Revolutionary Guard was attempting to conduct research for Iran to become a “nuclear power”. No sources are credited for just how the author came into this info? Russian spies emailed their plans to him? The one piece of evidence directly mentioned is that Hussein had threatened “to wipe out the Jewish state with nuclear weapons.” Later there is a mention that Reagan was surprised when the Israelis raided an “Iraqi nuclear reactor”, with some help from American weaponry.
Searching for just what these spies “discovered”, I found mentions such as that “Levi discovered” a “shadow civilian infrastructure… in the West Bank and Gaza”, which supported the “fundamentalist view”. These are very aggressive claims that are not justly supported. Instead, what these guys do is “quiet operations” that are not “discovered” until after a bombing or raid strikes a target. Another discovery is that coworkers were “religiously observant”: this is hardly relevant to the work of a spy, unless the job is outing those who are too religious. And there is a mention that investigators were surprised to learn a body might have been assassinated, before learning that “Israeli agents” had used other peoples’ passports to avoid getting visas to enter UAE. Israel had enraged other governments by using passports illegally. The agents were not “arrested”. This is certainly an exciting incident, but it concludes with a note that Netanyahu supported his “espionage chief’s” actions despite their illegality. This book is basically a puffery of extrajudicial killings in and outside of wars that were led by this spy-chief. His job has been to sneak up and kill enemies quietly, before his team can be detected, and then to find a way to spin history to prove he was right in his actions. If you are interested in learning more about this process, you might try reading this book. But there is too much empty content for an average reader to enjoy reading this text. It seems designed for specialists in this field, who might find snippets here and there that have not been publicized previously. Most around these snippets is an echo of commonly known historic claims.
Digressions About Disabilities in Films
Kristen Lopez, Popcorn Disabilities: The Highs and Lows of Disabled Representation in the Movies (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, November 27, 2025). $34.95: 240pp: 15 BW photos. ISBN: 978-1-493086-34-4.
**
“You can learn a lot from the movies—about sex and relationships, about business, about history. Sure, there’s a fair amount of fantasy, wish fulfillment, and glorious hair to exaggerate everything… And… movies have shaped the public’s understanding of and assumptions about disability. As a film critic and disabled person, Kristen Lopez speaks with particular authority on how disability is represented—and too often misrepresented—in movies… Even when they’re not just narrative props to help out an able-bodied protagonist, disabled movie characters are overwhelmingly white, affluent, and conventionally attractive, obscuring the variety of disabilities and the experiences of those who deal with them. But she also explains where films have gotten it right and how the power of the medium can continue to be used to enlighten and educate in the future. From little-remembered gems like Tod Browning’s Freaks—one of the earliest well-intentioned attempts to show disabled characters as complex, three-dimensional human beings-to contemporary films like Coda, My Left Foot, A Different Man, and many others…”
In a textbook I have been writing for my composition classes, I mention that most of humor tends to be about making the reader feel superior by showing some flaw or inferiority in a character who is the subject of jokes. Excessive weight and a unique disability are two of many elements that tend to be utilized to create this sense of superiority over an other. If the disabled or otherwise damaged person elicits sympathy in the viewer, the presentation is likely to be a tragedy, as opposed to a comedy. Presenting disabled characters as “complex” beings would fall into this latter tragic mode.
The “Contents” page does not divide chapters into easy portions. Some chapters’ titles are self-explanatory, as in, “Disabled Actors…” But then there is a title that uses the r— word. This list does not promise an easy read. The “Foreword” is also unpromising. It is rather self-deprecating (probably a positive) that the author points out: “I was a terrible film critic.” The “Acknowledgements” also start awkwardly with the exclamation: “It’s hard to believe this book is done.” The “Introduction” does finally mention some history, or the 35th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
This book does not invite readers. It is very digressive. The author has not edited out winded reflections, such as: “I’ve had my fair share of bad moments with people.” I am reading this book to jump into the meat of an analysis of how disability has been treated in films. I am looking for the facts, and a detached analysis of bias, or fairness. Why would it help anybody to start a chapter by noting: “I’m regularly asked what my favorite disabled film is”. If I was disabled, and researching this subject and people kept asking me this, I would have felt offended they have not thought harder about this topic. I certainly would not have opened with this sentence as a hook into a chapter. And why point out that there is a split opinion about a film such as Freaks, with as many who “love it” and those who find it “exploitative”. Yes, this is a generality that can be surmised? But why not at least check the Rotten Tomatoes score it must learn if it is indeed a 50-50 of the public that dislikes this film, or if it leans in one direction.
The subject of disability in films is a very important one that is in need of close scrutiny, but this is not the book to achieve this honorable goal. There might be great sections in this project. I would recommend for an editor to cut out the beforementioned empty passages to help readers find these treasures.
Comparative Study of the Origins of Marvel Fantasies in Myths
Peter Meineck, Tony Stark, Odysseus, and the Myths Behind Marvel (New York: HarperCollins, February 17, 2026). $30: 256pp. ISBN: 978-0-063382-64-0.
***
“…Foray into Ancient Greek mythology through the lens of some of Marvel’s most popular characters—including Iron Man, Black Widow, and Wolverine—and an investigation into why classical stories continue to resonate with modern audiences. Since its inception, Marvel has created—in comics and on the silver screen—a vast, intricate universe brimming with superheroes and superhumans. Yet Marvel exists in a much larger mythological tradition, one that dates back to the Ancient Greeks and their tales of gods and heroes. Professor of Classics Peter Meineck traces Marvel’s lineage back to its earliest roots at the dawn of human culture. Using Marvel’s most beloved heroes (and antiheroes), such as Spider-Man and Deadpool, Meineck demonstrates how ancient themes continue to appear in our stories today and reintroduces characters like Achilles and Odysseus from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. He shows the connection between Black Panther and the legend of Atlantis and reveals that disabled heroes like Daredevil have existed since the days of Hercules. What do Scarlet Witch and the sorceress Medea have in common? As grieving mothers outcast from society, quite a lot, actually. Through it all, Meineck explores why these stories endure and remain so relevant today. He examines how the legends have shifted to reflect society’s changing values and warns of the perils of misinterpreting such stories. Most importantly, he asks the million-dollar question: What do our modern myths say about us?”
I just finished writing a textbook called Atheist’s Guide to Mythology, in which I address how Greco-Roman myths have been borrowed from in later mythologies, and in modern fantasies. It is important to study these links to ancient myths in modern arts because these borrowings are repeating antiquated beliefs that tend to contradict the stated values of modern humans. My research points to doubts that Greco-Roman myths were indeed written at the dawn of history, or as some of the earliest texts composed by humans. It seems more likely that forgers created fake manuscripts and/or published these texts in the early Renaissance to puff up the antiquity of Roman culture. These forgers would have been sponsored by theological-monarchs interested in finding “antique” evidence to prop up their right to own countries, and peoples, and to violently fight others for more of these. Mimicking these propagandistic morality-plays in modern times shows a lack of appreciation for the progress of human freedom since that rather dark time. The details of just what Odysseus and Achilles did during their wars of aggression, and territorial conquest are hardly inspiring, but rather are barbaric. These ideals are being repeated in superheroes without questioning if the motives, and explanations for their violent actions are rational or legal by modern standards.
The note that Greco-Roman myths include disabled characters drew my attention. There is a mentin that Vulcan was “rarely shown as disabled”, but the surrounding text explains that Vulcan was of superior strength as a blacksmith, and does not mention what his disability might have been. There is a mention that “Amazons deliberately disabled male babies” to make them “do sedentary domestic tasks”. Such anti-Amazon myths would have been designed by masculists to make powerful women seem to be anti-male, or as frightening enemies that deserved to be suppressed, and robbed of their natural powers. There is a mention that “superchips” can be positively displayed as being an enhancement for the disabled, but there is no explanation for what Greco-Roman source has any chip-like devices. One direct example I found is the Hindu Khodiyar goddess, who has a “disabled foot”, as a symbol of “universal brokenness”. The author concludes that in Hinduism, the disabled are treated differently based on how useful they are, while in Greek mythology “disabilities” are used as gods’ “punishment for impiety”. But the next paragraph proves the opposite by mentioning a Vedic example of a punishment by a god with disabilities.
The analysis is somewhat specific and focused. Though the author seems to be reaching generalized conclusions and assumptions, instead of following the data. This book would have benefited from having a lot of sub-headings that address specific patterns, and myth-types: finding examples of these in the past and present. Some readers might benefit from reading this study closely. Those who study films, or mythology, or teach these subjects should find useful information here.
Study of the Artificial Institution of Theocratic-Monarchies: North Korea as a Variant of Presbyterianism
Jonathan Cheng, Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea’s Personality Cult (New York: Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor, April 14, 2026). 768pp. ISBN: 978-1-524733-49-0.
****
“A landmark history of North Korea, told through the rise of the Kim dynasty and its surprising ties to American Christianity—a spectacular, penetrating account of a world like no other. North Korea. The Hermit Kingdom. For nearly eight decades, it has marched defiantly to its own beat, shaking off its Soviet and Chinese sponsors to emerge as the world’s most enigmatic nation—a nuclear-armed state ruled by a dictatorial dynasty. Underpinning the state is a personality cult more soaked in religiosity than those constructed by Stalin or Mao—one that traces its roots back to the Christian fervor of post-Civil War America. Jonathan Cheng, the Wall Street Journal’s China bureau chief and former Korea bureau chief, takes us deep inside Pyongyang, a city once so dominated by Christianity it was known as the ‘Jerusalem of the East.’ Cheng introduces us to Samuel Moffett, a Presbyterian missionary from Madison, Indiana, who would venture into Pyongyang at the turn of the nineteenth century and build a remarkable following—one that would include the Kim family that today presides over one of the world’s harshest persecutors of the Christian faith. At the center of this story is North Korea’s founder, Kim Il Sung, son of two fervent Christians and progenitor of an ideology known as Kimilsungism, an exercise in idolatry that has elevated him, and his successor son and grandson, to Christlike status, from the humble manger where he was born to the subway seat on which the venerated leader once placed his posterior, cordoned off as if it were a religious relic. Drawing on letters, diaries, and never-before-unearthed archival material that temper and often contradict the glorious historical record promoted by Kim Il Sung’s legions of hagiographers,” it “tells the true story of a country shrouded in fictions.”
My Mythology textbook addresses the role Christian missionaries have had with introducing fictional fantastic mythologies to peoples around the world. Attributing myths to cultures has typically been used to demonize this culture: the introduction of fictional demons is used to dismiss the culture these are attributed to by forgers as being demonic. The main difference between cults and mainstream religions is the number of people convinced by the fiction, as opposed to the moral fortitude of the lessons a fantasy teaches. Thus, it is not surprising that North Korea’s cult was begun by Christian theologists or fantasists. They might have designed this fantasy to steer North Korea to be repelled away from these demons and into Christianity’s arms, but then locals might have taken the reins and steered the beast of fantasy to serve their regional interests. The note on “idolatry” fits this version of events: the initial goal was to accuse North Koreans of idolatrous beliefs, but then the locals indicated they preferred believing in the introduced idols. Most of the mentions of “idolization” in the interior is of making the ruler the idol, as opposed to any non-real entity. Monarchy and theocracy has worked hand-in-hand in Europe, and elsewhere as godly attributes are assigned to monarchs, who use the claim they descend from gods to prove they have a right to own countries. North Korea has used this monarch-worship to appoint a corrupted ordinary person’s family into a new dynasty. European powers made similar maneuvers across the world when they convinced local chiefs they were monarchs to claim a victory over a village equated to conquering a Mayan or Inca Empire. Puppeteering a monarchy for fiscal interests is much easier than a democratic society. The main difference is that this propagandistic campaign happened rather late, or after most of the colonizing efforts had fizzled out. Since the Kim family is still ruling with totalitarian power, this maneuver is one of the more effective fantastic-propaganda strategies of the past century.
To check how this book handles this topic, I searched for “Moffett”. In one section, there is an explanation about how the “Ten Principles” at the basis of North Korean idolatry echoes the “Ten Commandments”. And “the infallibility of Kim Il Sung mirrors that of the Christian God.” The “state bureaucracy” borrowed “institutions created by Samuel Moffett”, as the state “‘became a sort of Presbyterian government.’” The idea of “Christ as the head” who directions the actions of all Christians in Paul echoes the North Korean teachings that the Great Leader is the “brain”, who is the only entity allowed agency (436). After Moffett left, his Central Presbyterian Church became the Pyongyang Youth Center. Moffett had indeed “made Kim Il Sung” into “an important man”, but it seems they lost control of just what was done with this power of cultural importance. Manipulating public-opinion with pufferies is easy enough, but controlling what a corrupt leader will do with this power after you maneuver them into place is unpredictable (477).
Overall, this is a thorough study of an interesting subject. Those who are interested in how an artificial theocratic or idolatrous monarchy is created, would benefit from reading this book closely. It is a great addition for libraries of all kind, and for some private collections among those who research related topics.
A New Translation of a War-Novel that Stops the Reading of War-Novels
Erich Maria Remarque; Maria Tatar, Tr., All Quiet on the Western Front (New York: Viking Penguin, March 3, 2026). Hardcover: $30: 256pp, 6X9”. ISBN: 978-0-143138-76-1.
***
“The novel that has done more than any other to inspire opposition to war, in a major new translation that captures its undiminished literary power for a new generation… Galvanized by youthful idealism and patriotic fervor, nineteen-year-old Paul Bäumer and his schoolmates enlist in the German army at the onset of World War I. But soon their dreams of heroism shatter beneath the first shells of the bombardment, as they find on the battle front not the glory they were promised but savage brutality.” It “has sold more than twenty million copies, been translated into more than fifty languages, and been adapted into three acclaimed films. In his Nobel Prize lecture, Bob Dylan included it among three books that have left an impression on him since elementary school: ‘This is a book where you lose your childhood, your faith in a meaningful world, and your concern for individuals… I put this book down and closed it up. I never wanted to read another war novel again, and I never did…’ Harvard professor Maria Tatar draws on her lifelong engagement with German literature to give a new generation of readers an English version that comes closest to the lyrical tragedy of the 1929 original. It compels us to see with fresh eyes the abject horror of trench warfare, and to feel with a quickened heart the unbreakable bonds of friendship forged among Paul and his fellow soldiers as they fight not just for their country but also for their own survival… Enemy soldiers who’ve been demonized by the rhetoric of war actually have much in common, giving it the potential to generate principled outrage about the senselessness of war for another hundred years.”
The blurb is exceedingly bombastic in its puffery of this work. Such praise tends to be undeserved. This novel was written by a German WWI veteran, Remarque (1898-1970), who wrote a few echoing novels (one before, and a few after this bestseller). Remarque’s negative portrayals of Germany during WWI were banned by Nazis when they came into power. This is probably what made this work a subject of US propaganda that damned Nazi Germany. Remarque migrated to the US in 1938, when his citizenship was revoked. After gaining citizenship, he returned to living in Switzerland in 1948. Remarque was a pop novelist, as opposed to a canonical novelist: this is apparent as none of his other works or even his name are familiar to American readers.
The novel opens with realistic details about rations, and with insulting talk about fellow soldiers. “Things were reasonably quiet in our sector” before “the British artillery mounted a surprise attack”. This narrative basically celebrates Britain’s victory of these British troops, and this is why this work has been received with fervor in the US and Britain. But is there really anything extraordinary about the quality of this text, when its content or subject are taken away? Dylan’s quote that after reading this novel, he never wanted to read another war-novel again does not seem like an ad for this book. Usually very badly written novels have this impact on readers. A great novelist would have introduced innovative and vividly realistic scenes and actions that could have conveyed the tragedy of events, while allowing readers to admire the artistry of the composition. Reading books about war does not solve the problem of warfare. Reading more books about wars to understand patterns that repeat between wars would be a socially more positive result of a canonical book.
I also do not think that it is a good thing that the “scenes in which Paul returns to his hometown on leave could be lifted from a small town in Ukraine today” (x). This indicates that the author failed to include enough specific details to place readers into a vivid and singular place. Hack writers tend to use generalities so that they can duplicate common war-themes and place these into numerous slightly different settings. A great novel should be absolutely uniquely set and described. If an author has suffered through a specific conflict, their description of it should draw attention to details that took place that are unlikely all other conflicts.
The note on this translation does not begin with a clear explanation of what is new in this translation, if anything. It mentions that the initial version used a “halo of light” to glorify Paul’s heroism. Then, the translator notes that neither glory nor heroism were Remarque’s objectives, but rather to write “poetry about World War I” (xvi). A few pages later, there is a mention that the first translation of this novel had been made by Arthur Wheen, who she describes as being too traumatized by war to have rendered a justly poetic translation. She does explain that her version also retracts some of the censorship early publishers had committed to make a “German War Book” Kosher (xix). One censored scene described “chatting while squatting on improvised toilets”, while other scenes mentioned: “prostitution, farts, masturbation” and “communal diarrhea” (xx). This is a helpful explanation. It indicates that there is likely to be shocking details in this new translation that have not been included in previous versions: this makes this a better choice for serious readers. Also these details raises my evaluation of the quality of this novel, as they promise some shockingly vivid obscenities that are unlike what might be found in hacky war-novels.
This book is a good choice for all sorts of libraries, and will help teachers utilize a version of this novel that is closer to the German original.
How American Healthcare Generates Sickness to Profit
Stephen Bezruchka, Born Sick in the USA (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, March 26, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-009573-67-2.
***
“How healthy you are is dependent on where you live. Americans suffer more cancers, heart disease, mental illness, and other chronic diseases than those who live in other wealthy nations, despite having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Why? Embark on a journey to unravel the profound impact of public policies on American health from before birth… Delve into the intricate web where economic inequality weaves a tapestry of sickness stemming from a highly stressed society. This compelling read illuminates the need for transformative change in social safety nets and public policies to uplift national health and well-being. Through vivid storytelling, the book unveils the symptoms, diagnosis, and ‘medicine’ required to steer the nation toward a healthier future.”
The reason America has a sickness system is because individual doctors are driven by the profit-motive to fabricate, or to see sickness or diseases that are especially expensive to treat to maximize their profits. Diagnostic tests are over-ordered on vague suspicions of illness without needing to provide patients with documented proof of just what is wrong with them. The fact that 92% of Americans are covered by health-insurance, and 8% are uninsured creates a system where people are desperate to be helped medically whenever they are lucky enough to be covered. 100% universal coverage in most other nations who provide state-sponsored healthcare mean there is no desperation in the populace. Doctors also made set amounts that are not dependent on how many diseases they can make up, or “discover”. And American insurers are happy to see doctors raise fees because it means they can raise the fees they charge employers, who must meet whatever heights these fees reach to complete against other employers’ health-plans. Several players in charge of health profit only if they can prove a lack of health.
Inside this book, the section on the process a person goes through during a screening is conversationally summarized, instead of being evaluated with greater depths. Then generalities are mentioned about Americans being sicker than elsewhere. This is the type of information I have heard in YouTube health videos. A few pages later, there is some new information. There is a discussion of how “unnecessary tests” as well as most types of medicine tend to cause “medical harm”. The data has concluded “that when doctors go on strike, morticians have less work to do.” And when doctors commit harms such as “leaving surgical instruments behind in the body, prescribing drugs that patients are allergic to”, and the like; other doctors in the same hospital are rewarded by being hired to do the work of fixing these problems their coworkers caused (18). Though the author stops the new information here. When discussing his sister-in-law’s death during an “elective surgery”, he only notes that the cause was “an instrument malfunction”, without specifying just what an instrument could have done to cause terminal damage. He goes on to question how healthcare workers are at fault. The reason for the decline of knowledge among doctors is because many are likely to be obtaining paper-degrees, or to be hiring somebody to take tests for them, while they just pay for the certificate. They might just memorize mechanical surgical skills, or the steps of a basic physical exam, without authentically learning enough about the human body to fix problems. Even somebody entirely incompetent can create a problem that needs an expensive fix (such as leaving a sponge in a patient), whereas it would take extraordinary learning and research to introduce solutions that permanently fix problems to minimize the medical cost to all involved, thus minimizing the income for this hypothetical moral doctor. The problem with a lack of access for the poor to expensive medical school is not that it is unfair the poor cannot access this status, but rather in that the poor would probably take full advantage of the opportunity to learn, and would not be able to afford to buy their way into a paper-degree, thus actually earning the letters after their name (19). The following section is about over-marketing of medical expenses. It raises curious theoretical questions, without really diving into these subjects with the scientific exactness they need to actually fix these problems by finding their exact causes.
This is a conversational book that lightly complains about the problems with the American medical system. It is a necessary first step, but a researcher should have come in to finish this research paper. At this stage it is an argumentative essay that makes broad accusations and claims. It is missing sufficient quotes, statistics, specific patient accounts, and other evidence to bring this case from being a nebulous argument, into being a concrete legal case for just how the system should be changed.
Those who read the above summary and want to learn more, would probably enjoy reading further. But I think it would be a difficult read for most, as there is too much commonly-known information to keep a reader interested from cover-to-cover.
Ponderings on How Ideas Are “Discovered” Among Past Ideas
George Newman, How Great Ideas Happen (New York: Simon & Schuster, January 27, 2026). $30: 304pp. ISBN: 978-1-668026-00-7.
**
“We’re used to imagining creativity as a lightbulb moment—sudden, mysterious, reserved for the gifted few. But what if ideas aren’t conjured from thin air? What if they’re discovered—more like precious artifacts that we unearth and refine?… Cognitive scientist George Newman draws on cutting-edge research to show that creativity isn’t magic, it’s method. The most successful innovators don’t wait to be struck by brilliance; their creative process is more like archeology. As keen-eyed explorers, they scan the terrain, dig with intention, and, with a little luck, find gold. With vivid examples from the arts, science, and business, Newman shows how creativity often comes from discovering what was already there. For example, how Jackson Pollock tapped into deep patterns in nature to create his famous ‘drip’ paintings; how Korean filmmakers created an entirely new genre by closely studying foreign films; or, how Paul Simon made Graceland by carefully sifting through previously recorded material for what he could take away… Uncovers a repeatable method that anyone can follow, reframing creativity not as a rare gift, but as a universal capacity waiting to be unlocked through exploration…”
I completed a couple of textbooks this past Fall 2025 semester on the writing process, and they include sections on idea-generations that recommend specific formulaic strategies, and also describe intuitive approaches. So, I asked for this book to check if there might be some approaches here that I have not read about in my previous study of common idea-generating approaches. Most writing instructors probably have a similar interest in this topic.
My research into ghostwriters (BRRAM) has indicated that too many canonical texts were ghostwritten. Autobiographies of these writers also tend to be ghostwritten (usually by other ghostwriters); and these tend to create mythically absurd claims about how ideas were “discovered”, such as being hit on the head with an apple, or walking around and spotting some strange thing that reminded somebody of an idea. These romantic moments of discovery are assigned because it is nearly impossible to dispute such abstract anecdotes. Describing the process of just when a researcher went to the library, and just what they did for a decade before a book was written (or the ghostwriter’s brisk week long effort) is far more difficult to execute without running into historic problems.
Though the concept of “discovering” ideas that are already there, or acting as an archaeologist recommends repeating other peoples’ ideas, instead of authentically finding entirely new ideas of one’s own.
I began by finding the “Explore, Then Exploit” section on Pollock’s “drip” paintings. The author explains that in “1945, Guggenheim”, a collector, “lent Pollock the money to purchase a famous in Long Island”. The author accepts the notion that this was to help Pollock “recover from… alcoholism”. A more likely scenario is that this art collector made a living by making loans to struggling artists, who then had to get into desperate situations (perhaps forgery, or otherwise doing risky things for money) to pay him back. Pollock then would have been willing to create nonsensical drip art, and to make any other absurd suggestions this art collector made of him to manipulate public taste to profit sufficiently to be able to repay the loan. Or the art-collector might have decided to manipulate events towards being repaid with interests by purchasing the puffing Life magazine article that launched Pollock in 1949. Though the text does not explain just what sparked Pollock’s idea (yet). In the next section, Newman does point out that these paintings “look a bit like someone just took a bunch of house paint and splattered it about, all willy-nilly. So, what was the great idea?” The answer that follows is that there is a pattern to Pollock’s paintings that echo “formations” in trees. They point out that his early paintings are only 20% in the “fractal pattern”, while later ones are up to 90% “fractal”. To me, this indicates that two different artists created the earlier vs the later Pollocks. Absolutely no evidence is given what exactly Pollock, or the two artists who actually did these paint jobs, were thinking when they decided on this pattern. Thus, these observations do not help artists who are striving to design their own unique artistic styles.
Korean filmmakers designing a new style by imitating combinations of other film types comes closer to a realistic creation process, but this is the standard as opposed to an original creation technique.
The “Contents” does not really help readers find specific invention types. There are sections on surveying, organization, digging (research), and sifting through possible ideas. It could have benefited for sub-headings that describe specific invention strategy types. The “Introduction” does include a helpful clarification that summarizes the suggested formulaic stages: 1. Surveying: Deciding where to search for ideas; 2. Gridding: Organizing your search, 3. Digging: Unearthing promising ideas; and 4. Sifting: Choosing which ideas to pursue. These are standard parts of the research-method, so I have already explored these in my textbooks. There are no new approaches here that I might have added to my books.
Given the lack of delivery on evidence for just how Pollock came up with his drip idea, I do not trust that Newman did enough research into the covered ideas to explain their authentic origins, and thus this book is not helpful to a rhetorician who is really interested in uncovering these mysteries of creation. On the other hand, those who are interested in casually reading about curious ideas might enjoy reading further. Some public libraries in artsy regions would benefit from having this book in their collection.
A Scholarly Edition of the Texts that Introduced the Concept of the “Underground Railroad”
Thomas Smallwood, The Writings of Thomas Smallwood (New York: Viking Penguin, February 10, 2026). $17: 208pp. ISBN: 978-0-143138-38-9.
****
“A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name. Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by night. Twelve years after purchasing his freedom from slavery, Smallwood took to the press and, over a 16-month stretch starting in 1842, pseudonymously published newspaper dispatches ridiculing and excoriating enslavers by name and offering sobering reflections on the depravity of slavery. With the pen that Smallwood called his ‘lash,’ he leveraged mockery to flip the oppressive racial power structure of America. These dispatches, in which Smallwood was the first to use ‘underground railroad’ in print, are the only accounts of escapes to be published in real time, imbuing Smallwood’s subversive wit with urgency and defiance. His 1851 memoir is prescient on the United States’ tormented entanglement with race.”
My research into 19th century British ghostwriters indicated that the leading ghostwriter on the subject of slavery was Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846); he wrote for and against slavery with the underlying purpose of making it seem as if both sides are given a voice, while propagating for ways to keep slavery legal across parts of the Empire, or its associates long after it was outlawed in Britain itself. Clarkson began ghostwriting in his 40s, in around 1808. Shortly after Clarkson’s death in 1846, the subject of slavery seems to finally begin to be treated differently in the press, including this unique memoir of escapes; this might have been because Clarkson and his sponsors were monopolizing this topic internationally through sponsorships of publishers, periodicals and the like.
Though this work might have been counter-propaganda as well as it accuses people of running an “Underground Railroad”: making this seem as a conspiracy, instead of runaways being desperate people who individually escape captivity. A conspiracy might have given cause for militant action, whereas personal escapes would have kept such escapes out of state-interest.
The “Preface” addresses the poetry of the moment, instead of sounding like a genuine work of somebody scarred by enslavement and the hardships of escape. It addresses British poets, and the British monarchy and slavery system. Oy vey: there is a mention of “Clarkson” a few pages into these reflections (92). No, I think I proved my initial guess wrong: it is very likely this was one of Clarkson’s posthumous publications. It is probably a bit outside his typical projects because he probably closeted this work after writing it (because of its uniqueness) and then a publisher probably decided to run it without Clarkson’s permission after his death. One mention refers to Clarkson as one of the “great men” who were “slander”, and “who ranked high among the truly great and good of the world, in their day”. Clarkson strove to sell himself as a “good” abolitionist under his own byline, while publishing anti-abolitionist propaganda under others’ bylines. Then, there is a mention that Thompson was recently assailed for his anti-slavery views (92). Thompson had major debates between 1833 and 1847, when he was elected to the House of Commons. Since an address describes Thompson as a member, it had to be written after 1847, and so some other ghostwriter other than the deceased Clarkson had to have finished this book. The editor of this volume notes that the “Address to Geo. Thompson” is not “explicitly” claimed by Smallwood with “authorship”, as it might have been a later appendage made by an editor from the second later ghostwriter. Thompson is not mentioned elsewhere in this book (162).
When the term “underground railroad” is explored, the first interest is the cost of the journey: “fifteen to fifty dollars to the first place of deposit… We had to pay teamsters a very high price in order to induce them to risk…” In other words, escapes are presented as a profitable venture. If the enslaved were willing to pay, it might be as profitable to help them escape as to profit from helping slavers purchase slaves (105-6). Then there is a reflection about the “want of money”, which suggests that another source of profit was obtaining donations for operating this railroad from good people that believed the slave-trade was wrong. Though those who collected money for such illegal escapes could have kept the funds without aiding any real escapes, and those donating would not have dared investigate what happened to these funds (106). This focus on the funds instead of on the details of the transit suggests the author is overseeing these matters as fiscal concerns from a distance, instead of being involved in these activities on the ground.
This is a great resource for those researching this subject because a lot of materials are provided to allow researchers to reach conclusions about authorship, and the history and biography behind this narrative. Most libraries will benefit from adding this book to their collection. Researchers of this subject will certainly both enjoy and profit from reading this scholarly edition closely.
Analysis of Tolkien’s Myth-Writing Method
Michael D.C. Drout, The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien’s Creation (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, March 26, 2025). $35: Hardcover: 384pp. ISBN: 978-1-324-09388-6.
****
“…How” Tolkien “created an entire world.” Tolkien is claimed to have “spent decades refining his Middle-earth―a world that has felt so real to so many readers that it is almost impossible to imagine that any single person could have simply created it, seemingly out of thin air.” It reviews the creation of “The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion” and “lesser-known books such as The Fall of Gondolin as well as Tolkien’s poetry and innovative scholarship.” With a look at the “author’s methods… Drout shows us how Tolkien invented myths, legends, cultures, languages, histories, and an intricate, multivocal narrative. We come to understand how Tolkien drew upon and modified material he found in Beowulf, the Kalevala, and other medieval literature from northern Europe, using the subtle qualities of those famous works as inspiration for his own. We also see the process by which he created the complex form of sorrow that is the primary emotional effect of his mature works, a sadness ‘blessed without bitterness,’ carefully woven through a tapestry of themes that has resonated with generations of readers… Enhanced throughout by Drout’s personal reflections on how Tolkien has shaped his own life and relationships…” The latter note bodes badly for this book, as personal reflections tend to be digressive and unhelpful for truth-seekers.
As I mentioned, I just completed writing my Atheist’s Guide to Mythology textbook, which explains how European mythologists appear to have gradually forged myths or fantasies they ascribed to colonial peoples to demonize them. Tolkien’s books were written in a later wave of this myth-writing effort as Britain began losing parts of its Empire, and was devising strategies to keep what remained. Britain’s entry into WWI was part of this effort, as was the authorship of The Hobbit in 1937. Thus, Tolkien’s ability to fabricate a fictional language, and culture should be viewed with suspicion as opposed to amazement. If he could forge this fantastic world, he might have learned this skill by practicing forging “real” languages, and myths.
Introductory comments celebrate that Lord is “600,000 words long” and includes “untranslated passages written in invented languages” (3). Then when discussing that the Rohirrim language can be translated by looking words up in Old English, the author comments he does not want to attempt such decryptions because they break “the illusion” (10). Too many mentions speculate generally about “moral vision” and other abstractions, instead of just breaking down Tolkien’s method (the subject that interests me) (12). The author also seems to be concerned with the unlikelihood that “Tolkien” was created by only “a single… twentieth-century author”, as it seems instead to have “been composed and compiled by multiple writers in several time periods” (24). My research into ghostwriters would support this theory, as often one ghostwriter starts a project, and others add to it. For example, the inclusion of poems and prose could come from two ghostwriters: one a poet, the other a prose-specialist (24). Some evidence is provided that helps to support my theory. Carpenter is quoted as having found evidence that Tolkien said he wanted “to create a mythology for England”. He hoped to adapt the Finish Kalevala epic to an English setting (26). This shows a direct intent to forge myths and to attribute these to different cultures. Though Drout finds that Tolkien’s actual letters only mention his appreciation for a “nonsense fairy language” without directly insisting he would create a “new mythology” (27). Tolkien’s purpose was just to write stories without seemingly a grand design. Though somebody whose intent was to forge other cultures mythologies probably would not have confessed this in writing. Tolkien does write that while reading Kalevala, he decided to take “the tale of Kullervo the hapless” and adopt him “into a form of my own” (29). Beowulf and other tales had been ghostwritten and forged by earlier generations of British ghostwriters to fabricate a monarchic past. Tolkien similarly created fantastic monarchic propaganda for Britain in his own time. Tolkien “invented… not only names, characters, and locations, but also their deep histories and legendary pasts” (54). European myth-writers did this for many peoples who they colonized. For example, inventing a monarchic-warring history with a human-sacrificing religion for native peoples allowed Spanish conquerors to mass-exterminate these peoples with diseases to avoid the far more difficult task of actually fighting with individual villages for land, if they had not been connected into a single Empire.
There are many digressions away from Tolkien, and into other writers, and texts. This book gives readers much to think about. But it is all too scattered. Some editorial intervention could have helped to make it easier for readers to digest these reflections. Though it is important to have these reflections that are too rarely pondered-on in past scholarship. Those who are scholars of Tolkien will find many springboards for their own research in these pages.
A Puffery of a Self-Guided Death-Machine
Jeffrey E. Stern, The Warhead: The Quest to Build the Perfect Weapon in the Age of Modern Warfare (New York: Dutton, January 20, 2025). $35: 416pp, 6X9”. ISBN: 978-1-524746-42-1.
**
A “human history of the first self-steering bomb. Paveway, the first ‘smart’ bomb, was created to be a more precise and ostensibly humane weapon, reducing civilian casualties. The true impact of the bomb, however, is ever more complex and unpredictable… The story of Paveway through the lives of seven interconnected stories. They’re stories of Nazis, Kennedys, Operation Paperclip, and Walt Disney; of the Apollo mission and the space shuttle Challenger disaster. Paveway inadvertently sparked the personal computing revolution and the adoption of GPS, it ushered in the era of modern warfare, and it shows up at critical historical moments throughout the last half century…”
Paveway is a laser-guided bomb that was developed by Texas Instruments starting in 1964. It won a major contract in 1967 to test these bombs in the Vietnam War. New generations of this weapon were sponsored across the 1970s and 80s by the US government. And they continued to be used in warfare, with the fourth generation having been approved in 2008. These bombs have caused incidents such as the 1991 killing of 408 civilians in a strike of a Baghdad bunker. These bombs destroyed over a hundred bridges per-year in North Vietnam. US saw a 75% increase in military spending between 1964-75. Much of this increase was in ordinary bombs that blanketed Asia, but these bombs allowed for more tailored destruction of lives an infrastructure. Defense contractors manipulated events to favor entering these wars without a reasonable chance of victory, and profited from sending as many bombs as possible there. Automating the bombing process by sending bombs that did not have to be manually steered by a soldier who could have refused to put themselves in danger to kill others allowed the slaughter to continue for decades.
The preface notes the author became interested in this story when he was asked by a villager to touch his scarred face that had been damaged by one of these bombs, and this sent him on this research project to learn more about it. The “Prologue” then moves back to Joe Kennedy Jr.’s flight with bombs in his plane during WWII. The drama is the struggle of building better weapons between Hitler, America and Britain. The narrative is rather dramatic, as engineers’ experiments with blowing things up are intensified with some details. It is a bit too vague just what the science was behind early experiments in remote bomb-creation. Names of engineers, engineering companies, and the bomb names are not included, making this a rather unhelpful book for scholars of this topic. Then, dialogue and actions are mentioned without citations, making these sound like fiction, as opposed to history.
The next chapter starts with a specific Lieutenant Colonel Hilton’s flight into enemy territory: a high-speed entry with dramatically adventurous altercations. I usually dislike these types of fictionalized histories, but this is a relatively well-executed example of this genre. The author edited events to cut out digressions, and is mostly including points of highest tension. Then again, this is a book about bomb engineering, and most of the incidents are of bombing. And the author promised to show how problematic or harmful these bombs are, but is really just creating a pro-war propaganda that sells the excitement of warfare, as opposed to showing it from the perspective of civilians being bombed. Those who enjoy reading fictionalized war-histories would probably enjoy reading further, but I am not in this group.
How to Speed-Write Jokes for Television
Elliott Kalan, Joke Farming: How to Write Comedy and Other Nonsense (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, November 2025). $19.95: 304pp, 15 halftones, 5.5X8.5”. ISBN: 978-0-226829-92-0.
****
“The winner of four Emmys, a Peabody, and two Writers Guild Awards (all of which badly need dusting) explains his process for writing comedy without going insane. Philosophers may debate the meaning of comedy (thankfully keeping them too busy to fall into a life of crime), but the rest of us are more likely to wonder how we can make an audience laugh—or at least, how to entertain our friends and followers. According to award-winning comedy writer Elliott Kalan, we need to stop staring out the window, waiting for hilarious bits to stroll into view, fully formed. What we need is a process to plant their premises, tend to their structure and wording, and ultimately harvest them as funny material. In short, a farm. But for jokes… Kalan explains that it’s easier to write jokes when you have a dependable method for doing so. All jokes, he argues, are built from the same elements: structure, premise, voice, tone, wording, and audience—and these elements can be applied to any comedic genre, from stand-up to sitcoms to satire. Kalan analyzes examples from his own career—including jokes that he wrote (and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote…) as head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—as well as material from a diverse array of comedians, writers, and filmmakers, highlighting the phrasing, rhythm, and precise details that make their work so dang funny. Drawing on his experiences in professional writers’ rooms as well as episodes from everyday life, Kalan’s guide to jokes will appeal to aspiring writers, their mentors, comedy fans, and anyone who has to speak at a wedding.” It “points the way toward a writing process that lessens stress and agony and yields more reliable rewards: a surprising tagline, a hilarious word choice, and—most importantly—a bigger laugh from the audience, whoever they may be.”
I requested this title to further my research into the science of rhetoric, as I mention different humorous methods in my textbooks-in-progress. I hope to find something I have not hears about regarding the “elements” of joke-writing: “structure, premise” etc. The above blurb is well-polished, so this is a good start.
“Contents” divide this book rather logically. Part 2 includes sections on the beforementioned elements: structure, tone etc. Then Part 3 applies these rules to specific means or types of comedy: stand-up, satire, podcasting and others.
The “Introduction” returns to a concept discussed elsewhere in this set of reviews: that ideas strike like a jolt of lightening fully-formed, whereas instead they appear from hard crafty work. This book has a very similar premise that jokes are “foraged” or harvested, just as the other book described discovering ideas from past ideas. Though the author seems to be too concerned with sounding cool and funny to get to the meat of the subject. In a section that promises to define jokes, he digresses into various elements of humor, and jokes about joking instead (6). Then he puffs himself by offering a biography for which shows he worked on previously (8). He claims comedy is not just a career but a calling: how is this supposed to help readers with their writing (8). He recommends purchasing a library of shows: selling his past shows as models for writers.
As he starts to describe his “Process”, he again puffs his credits. Then, he finally starts describing the exact process he used for the Daily Show. They met for a morning “writers meeting”. But writers are only pitching possible jokes here, and he is not explaining how he would come up with these pitches. They received assignments for segments. In two hours, they speed-wrote the assigned jokes. All drafts are read by the producers, and the head writer. Then they wrote a second draft (15-6). He does not mention how many writers there were or how many lines this added up to per-writer. If there were 10 writers, each would be writing, and re-writing around 6 pages in that day-shift, or around 750 words. This is a pretty leisurely writing assignment. But he puffs his work as being “faster than I had before” written, and this speediness meant he had to design a speed-writing method.
Finally, in a section called “My Process” he explains the steps, which begin with: “Identify the absurdity I’ve recognized in a subject: the seed of what’s funny about it. Then consider how this absurdity would be viewed from the perspective and frame of reference of the comedic voice for which I’m writing…” Then, he rephrases the “point” in a simple language. He highlights the “premise” to make sure the audience understands the “point”. He applies a formulaic structure that is one of the typical formulas that work in the format he is working in. And then he colors this story with an emotional tone. He edits it to take out unnecessary content, and confusion. Then, he tests these jokes on an audience to check it comes across as funny to other humans (19-20). He then notes that the average time per-joke was “six minutes” in 2015 (20). I think this would mean there were around 20 short jokes he had to write in 2 hours to fit into 6 pages. Or there were far less than 10 writers on that staff. The number of credited writers on this show in 2025 is 20, so if evenly divided, each should not be writing more than 3 pages per-day, and this is not counting commercial time. The formulaic structures mention including elements such as: “making a pop culture reference”, replying “to the speaker… as if in conversation with them”, “continue the sound bite as if finishing the speaker’s thought”, “act out a scenario using a funny voice”, “illustrate the point with an analogy”, and the like.
This is very helpful and very exact advice. If I was planning on applying to write for this show, I would go through every page of this book to figure out the exact formulas they use to bang out content. Anybody who is considering applying to write for television would thus benefit from reading this book closely as well. Though you have to do some digging to find such jams. Then again, it is likely the rest of the book is reasonably dense with concrete advice and examples.
Do Not Look Inside This Book: Biased Self-Puffery from Meta’s Marketer
Alex Schultz, Click Here: The Art and Science of Digital Marketing and Advertising (New York: Little, Brown Spark, October 1, 2025). $32: 400pp. ISBN: 978-0-316597-59-3.
*
“The… guide to digital marketing and advertising from one of the most influential digital marketers in the world, Alex Schultz, Chief Marketing Officer of Meta… How do you achieve growth for your business in the digital age? There are any number of different channels and platforms, and a vast array of tools and mechanisms to advertise to your potential customers… He guides readers through the key principles for maximizing the impact of your marketing budget, whether you are working for a global corporation or running your own start-up. From understanding channels, to testing creative, to measuring incremental gains”: a book about growing a business.
The blurb puffs Meta’s marketer as it is clearly simply selling Facebook as the platform on which businesses should advertise their products and services. “Contents” divides this book into sections on basics (targeting markets, channels, and design), infrastructure (metrics, returns on investment, hiring marketers like this author), and channels (search, social, partner/product-led). Then, there is a section on terminology that uses abbreviations that make digital marketing seem more convoluted than it is, seemingly also to convince business owners to hire marketers instead of just doing the marketing themselves. For example, using ROI for return-on-investment does not help a marketer; and the explanation stresses that making more from revenue than the cost of marketing is a positive, and prepares readers for the possibility that they will lose money from a marketing effort. Then, the “Introduction” stresses “growth is good” and seems to be using reverse-psychology to support this idea, as it might be again preparing readers that the possibility of losing money on social marketing is instead a positive outcome (i.e. money is evil for you, but good for the corporation being paid for small businesses’ evil attempts to profit). After a few paragraphs of empty nonsense, he puffs his credentials. And he finishes this section by claiming “great marketing can lead to 10- or 100-fold differences in outcomes.” This exaggeration seems to be designed to promise extreme profits to those who are greedy for rewards, and then to blame the quality of the “marketing” when instead a campaign is a net-ROI-loss.
I tried sifting through this book to milk it for any information that might help me understand how to market the books I sell with Anaphora. There was not a single new idea that I gathered as I browsed through over half of this book. If I had paid money to look inside, I would not have been happy with this purchase. It repeats commonly-known facts about modern marketing with many cliches and abstractions. Lists of strategies do not even mention anything original in their headings. Numbers tend to be exaggerated. There are some figures, but these do not address topics that would be of interest to serious researchers, and seem to answer questions nobody wants to know the answer to. The author never acknowledges their biased perspective, and aggressively sells Facebook ads. At one point, he notes that his main achievement was realizing that changing the wording from “Advertise” to the more active “Create an Ad” was one of his “favorite wins of all time”. This type of advise stresses that it is the marketer’s fault if they fail to find the wording that sells, as opposed to the problem being these platforms using bots to make it seem as if a campaign had a lot of hits, when it might have remained invisible to actual viewers.
Fun Mystery About an Aristocratic Murderess or a Reputation-Hit-Campaign
Shelley Puhak, The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster (New York: Bloomsbury USA, February 17, 2026). $29.69, 6X9”: 304pp: BW images and maps throughout, 8pg color insert. ISBN: 978-1-639732-15-9.
****
“…Work of true crime and feminist history about the woman alleged to be the world’s most prolific female serial killer. There have long been whispers, coming from the castle; from the village square; from the dark woods. The great lady—a countess, from one of Europe’s oldest families—is a vicious killer. Some even say she bathes in the blood of her victims. When the king’s men force their way into her manor house, she has blood on her hands, caught in the act of murdering yet another of her maids. She is walled up in a tower and never seen again, except in the uppermost barred window, where she broods over the countryside, cursing all those who dared speak up against her… Despite claims that Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed as many as 650 girls, some have wondered if the Countess was herself a victim of one of the most successful disinformation campaigns known to history. So, was Elizabeth Bathory a monster, a victim, or a bit of both? With the breathlessness of a whodunit, drawing upon new archival evidence and questioning old assumptions, Shelley Puhak traces the Countess’s downfall, bringing to life an assertive woman leader in a world sliding into anti-scientific, reactionary darkness—a world where nothing is ever as it seems… Revealing just how far we will go to destroy a woman in power.”
I recently reviewed a Russian TV series about a female duchess who killed many of her serfs, and this book seems to also be hitting this trope of excessive wealthy-female violence. The echoes between these characters is these women’s struggles to pressure their servants to perform at their best, mixed with greed for financial profit, and with the easy corruption of local officials. Though the point of advertising these female murderers seems to have been part of masculist campaigns to prevent women from being allowed to rule as lords of aristocratic estates. Men were murdering slaves and serfs, and debauching since the earliest years, but these deeds have mostly been intentionally erased from history to create a false positive impression of the tortures of enslavement. In both the series and this book, the female murderer is locked away forever in a tower, instead of being executed for her crimes. I requested this particular echo in part because it asks the question I am interested in: if this is indeed part of a “disinformation campaign”. Are men so fragile in their leadership abilities that they engage in campaigns to actively nullify the rival power of a female ruler? The Bloody Lady is about the Russian Darya Saltykova, while this work is about the Hungarian Countess Bathory Erzsebet or Elizabetth de Batthory or Elizabeth Bathory (1560-1614). The pattern between these is that Eastern Europeans were especially prone to these hit-campaigns. Both of their husbands’ died before they were accused, and both had at least one child. Elizabeth’s husband died in 1604, and she was busted in 1610, and kept living for a few of the following years in prison. Elizabeth was of a higher social standing before her marriage than Darya. And both had a healer or a witch who they consulted, who contributed a demonic element to these stories. The “Prologue” explains the significance of Elizabeth’s history to partly stem in her being named the “most prolific murderer known in recent criminal history” since the 1960 Guinness Book of World Records (11); she beat out male competitors for this role. This extreme suggests the numbers were inflated, as it seems impossible any human to escape personally murdering this many people without somebody stopping them. Puhak then does a good job pointing out inaccuracies in the record-account, including details on her not undergoing a trial, not being walled “into her tower room”, and a witness gave a second-hand statement. The “Countess’s estate administrator… had supposedly ‘found a written document or a register in the captive Lady’s trunk listing the dead girls, numbering up to 650”. The court clerk marked this is “hearsay”, but it is now recited as “an established fact”. Puhak does a really great job pointing out that “most villages had only twenty to twenty-five houses and a total population of 150 to 170 people” (12). Pukah adds a cliff-hanger as she mentions that Elizabeth was also accused of leading a “child trafficking ring” by helping “dedicated girl catchers”. Darya is also accused of promoting the prostitution of her village’s women, so this is a curious point that seems truthful. Male overseers are more likely to have been corrupted into such trafficking, so when women were put in aristocratic charge of their territory, they might have devised such accusations to be rid of somebody who might have favored standing up for the women in these villages.
This is a very well-written book that readers are likely to enjoy reading from cover-to-cover. Thus, it is a good option for private collections, and for all types of libraries. Just a delightful true-crime narrative for those who care about discovering historical truths.
Pro-Mindless-Writing Essays from a Bestselling Hack
Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity (New York: Simon & Schuster, November 11, 2025). $19: 160pp. ISBN: 978-1-668095-82-9.
***
“Discover the inimitable genius of Ray Bradbury as he explores the art of writing, the power of creativity, and the timeless appeal of storytelling… Bradbury delves into his prolific writing career, exploring the creation of countless stories, novels, plays, movies, and more that have stood the test of time. Written over a thirty-year period, these inspirational essays insist that there is a ‘deep well of explosive self-revelation’ in all of us waiting to be released through the process of writing… He reveals how writers can find their own unique path to developing their voice and style.”
Bradbury (1920-2012) is known for the novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), having begun publishing his speculative stories in 1938 at 18. He soon began publishing a fanzine, and regularly contributing stories to magazines. Though his first paid work was co-written with Henry Hasse in 1941, and his first short stories collection was released in 1947. Since he is a life-long or career writer, his advice on writing is indeed of interest.
I turned first to “Investing Dimes: Fahrenheit 451”: he explains that this was a “dime novel” initially called The Fire Man that cost him $9.80 “to write”. This seems to suggest he purchased it from a ghostwriter for this sum… He could not write around his children at home, so he wrote it at “the typing room in the basement of the library at the University of California at Los Angeles”. He then explains that he meant he used the money to pay for renting a typewriter by the half-hour. He claims to have finished “the first draft in roughly nine days”, reaching “25,000 words”, or “half” of this novel. From these concrete concerns, he digresses into reflecting about his life as a writer, and then says he asked his characters to report to him on what happened to them since he last wrote about them. He has an extensive conversation with the Fire Chief character from his main novel: it is very dull in not really being about anything in particular. He concludes that his “subconscious” had called his characters “after a paper manufacturing company” and after “a maker of pencils” without telling him about this. This again hints that he has used a ghostwriter, as he would otherwise had been writing consciously…
The next article about writing another novel does not catch attention with any concrete details. The previous article is called: “Drunk, and in Charge of a Bicycle”. This does not appeal. Reading drunk-writing is unpleasant. The “Introduction” explains that this is a new edition of a very old collection of Bradbury’s articles. Instead of explaining how this edition differs from previous ones, the author muses about their childhood and reading. After these digressions, the editor judges Bradbury harshly for having “a Depression-era work ethic”, such as writing “at least a thousand words a day”, viewing “writing as work, as hours of production…” This would be something I agree with, but the next paragraph stresses that he was also proponent of relaxation, or of writing with “Zen”, or a lack of critical self-chastisement. This is why he wrote a lot, but it is all very airy or lacking into insightful details. In the article called “Zen in the Art of Writing”, Bradbury expands on this point. It combines the concepts of “Work”, “Relaxation” and “Don’t Think!” He seems to be saying that he came to realize that he has to make a living from hack-writing, but that it does not really matter how good his writing is, as he is paid the same amount per-page. And so, instead of struggling to achieve some great writing quality, he decided to just type whatever comes to mind without straining to “think”. This is not good advice for young writers. This is not even good advice for retired writers because such lack of thinking would wither the mind. Dull uninterested writing surely bores the writer as it bores the reader. He accuses those who strive to have a literary style of “imitating” canonical writers such as Woolf or Faulkner. This is all very, very bad advice indeed. But I am glad I browsed through this book because I am now more familiar with Bradbury’s writerly philosophy than I was before I started. Those who want to understand the mind of a hack-writer would similarly benefit from reading this collection.
Insightful Study of the Corruptions of the American Justice System
Emily Galvin Almanza, The Price of Mercy (New York: Crown, February 17, 2026). $32: 384pp. ISBN: 978-0-593799-11-6.
****
“A former public defender takes us behind the closed doors of America’s criminal courts, revealing how the institutions that claim to protect us are doing the exact opposite—and offering a blueprint for finally fixing it. As Americans, we are told a rose-tinted story about our criminal courts—that these are the hallowed halls of justice, that the purpose of our legal process is to find the truth, and that those who enforce the law are both equitable and heroic. But what if the reality is purposefully obscured to hide something rotten at the system’s core?… Attorney and former public defender Emily Galvin Almanza weaves hard data and unforgettable stories, dark humor and compelling evidence to tell us the truth about what’s really going on behind the closed doors of America’s criminal courts. She shows us how jails actually increase future crime, the dirty tricks police use to make millions in overtime pay, how a man could spend decades in prison because scientists mistook dog hair for his own, the perverse incentives that push prosecutors to seek convictions even when they themselves don’t want to, and how judges may decide cases differently after lunch. We’ll learn what’s working, too: how public defenders can improve public health and even economic mobility, and how planting more trees can reduce a neighborhood’s murder rates. But a lone defender winning a case won’t change the system. Galvin Almanza argues that we need an engaged public to confront the stark reality of our crime-generating, poverty-entrenching, health-destroying legal apparatus and rebuild it into something that can save our collective present and prevent our future from being torn apart…”
The chapter titles are clear, as they point to different parts of the justice system. The chapter on “Policing… Misconduct” interested me. It begins by noting that one of the leading causes of death “for young men” is “the police”. Black men are said to be especially vulnerable, but the specific statistics are not given. A couple of pages later, there is a statistic that New York Times found that “police spent only about 4 percent of their time on violent crime”. Police prefer to low “non-dangerous crimes” such as “trespassing” to clock in arrests, without facing the possibility of being shot or stabbed. While this is a very interesting fact, the author then goes into generalities, such as that police usually identify “unregistered vehicles” and other small transgressions. Officers are interested in booking somebody because the associated reports and the like take up a lot of time that tends to spill over into overtime, which is compensated “at 150 percent or more of their regular pay”. A great detail follows that New York Port Authority police average making “43,778 per officer in overtime in 2023, with some making extra hundreds of thousands of dollars per year”. And officers are allowed to get away with misconduct because of “qualified immunity” rules.
This is a surprisingly well-researched book that manages to be conversational while delivering facts on this important topic, which is usually handled with social commentary that is devoid of these types of clear-cut explanations. This book offers several useful solutions as it explains the problems with the justice system. If this advice was followed across the US, the law would become significantly less profitable, America would drop from having the highest number of incarcerated people, and Americans would be significantly safer and less likely to be falsely imprisoned or otherwise hurt by Justice.
The Science in and Amusements About Accents
Valerie Fridland, Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents (New York: Viking, April 21, 2026). $32: 320pp, 6X9”. ISBN: 978-0-593830-48-2.
***
“A fun, smart and surprising dive into the past, present and future of accents—and the enduring power of sounding different. Accents have long held our fascination. As far back as the 7th century BCE, Egyptian pharaohs experimented with babies to test out theories about the ‘original’ accent and the Old Testament relays how a small difference in the pronunciation of ‘s’ became a fatal litmus test of tribal belonging. Still today, from dinner parties to job interviews, you’ll find people kicking up dust about things like where and how to pronounce a ‘t,’ as in, never in ‘often,’ but with proper British poshness, as in ‘t(y)une.’” It “unlocks the secrets of what linguistic science, psychology and history can tell us about the evolution of human speech, why accents develop, and how they shape our professional and social lives… Fridland explores how the twin forces of physiology and psychology along with the need to fit in changes the trajectory of speech over languages and lifetimes, diving deep into the history and social forces driving the way people talk… Whether it’s the accent that hints at your hometown, your group, your social status or your ethnicity, the sounds we say reveal a lot about who we are and where we’ve been—even for those who might think they have no accent at all…”
Pharaohs are only mentioned thrice in this book. The claim is that the Greek historian Herodotus related a claim from “Egyptian priests” of an experiment that attempted to derive “the first or primordial language”, wherein “the Egyptian pharaoh Psammetichus” kept babies in isolation to determine what language they would naturally begin to speak, and when they said “bekos”, he concluded that not Egyptian but rather Phrygian was the first language, whereas they might have merely been imitating goats. My recently completed Mythology research indicated Herodotus’ and other “ancient” Greco-Roman texts might have been forged during the Renaissance in Italy. Italians were in constant conflict with the Ottoman Empire across the Mediterranean and other seas throughout the Renaissance period. They had an interest in propagating for the antiquity of their own culture, and making derisive claims against parts of the Middle East, such as Egypt. The anecdote criticizes Egyptians of being inhumane towards babies, and in being vane in their attempts to claim a more ancient past when it was the Europeans who were forging a false pre-historic narrative to vainly prop themselves up.
The Old Testament story accepts as a truth that ancient people used the Ephraimites lack of a “sh” sound in their language to weed them out and slay them as they were attempting to cross a passage to escape a fight. The author confuses the fantasy with history, as this biblical account is believed. Just how anybody could have recalled the pronunciation of a pre-historic or a pre-written language is not explained. This account is followed by the more likely to be authentic claim that in 1282, “the Sicilian word for chickpea, ciciri, was used to root out French citizens in Sicily during an uprising against French occupation”. The author does not notice that this echo hints that the Old Testament might have been written proximately in time to 1282, when such “accents” came to matter in the multi-lingual Europe.
The “Introduction” explains that the author decided to write about this topic because she was the daughter of immigrants raised in the south, where people tend to be very picky about accents. The conversational style of this book seems to be meeting a requirement for mainstream scholarly books to use a simple language that is easy to read for the greatest possible number of readers. She uses contractions and other informal elements. But she does manage to fit in many interesting and complex facts, such as that the problem with “spelling/sound mismatches” is from “writing not keeping up with changes that occurred in spoken language, like the ‘ee’ and ‘ea’ spelling[s]”.
Overall, this is a strong attempt to combine educating readers about accents, while also entertaining them with historical anecdotes, and casual linguistic philosophy. English instructors, and those majoring in English would probably enjoy reading this book from cover-to-cover to learn a bit about linguistics in a leisurely manner. Some pronunciation or linguistics classes might use this as a textbook.
An Intricate Study of Top-Eschalot Plagiarisms
Roger Kreuz, Strikingly Similar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, March 26, 2025). ISBN: 978-1-009618-33-5.
*****
“…A politician copies a section of a speech, a section of music sounds familiar, the plot of a novel follows the same pattern as an older story, a piece of scientific research is attributed to the wrong researcher… The list is endless. Allegations and convictions of such incidents can easily ruin a career and inspire gossip. People report worrying about unconsciously appropriating someone else’s work. But why do people plagiarize? How many claims of unconscious plagiarism are truthful? How is plagiarism detected, and what are the outcomes for the perpetrators and victims?” It “uncovers the deeper psychology behind this controversial human behavior, as well as a cultural history that is far wider and more interesting than sensationalized news stories.”
In my Rhetoric textbook, I mention the stories of Biden’s several plagiarisms. He was reprimanded for plagiarizing an article from a law-journal in law-school, and his speechwriter was accused of copying other politicians speeches during his early runs. I searched for “Biden”, and indeed his name appears 53 times in this book. In one case there is a mention that Pence, Clinton and Biden all used the phrase “boundless capacity of the American people”. In another section, there is a mention of the British politician Neil Kinnock plagiarism by Biden’s speechwriter that I also mentioned, with the specification that it was probably “ranked as the highest-profile example of plagiarism in US history” (113). A long explanation of Biden’s many other plagiarisms follows. One case I do not recall reading about previously is Biden’s memoir, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics (2007); a New Yorker reporter found similarities between it and Richard Cramer’s What It Takes (1992): Biden had “repeated many of the stories from Cramer’s book, some of them almost verbatim, with similar gaps” (115). Another case was his “lifting” of “language from the XQ Institute as well as the Carbon Capture Coalition” with “word for word” exactness in some places (115-6). This section is followed by a mention of how Benjamin Disraeli’s 1852 eulogy plagiarized Adolphe Thiers eulogy that had been published in 1848. My stylometric findings indicate that Benjamin’s and Isaac Disraeli’s (1804-1881) rhetoric was ghostwritten by Charles Babbage (1791-1871). Thus, Benjamin probably just tried minimizing the cost of purchasing a speech by plagiarizing it, or Babbage might have resold one of his previous eulogies because he had a heavy workload given the volume of texts the 12-ghostwriter Workshop of the 19th century churned out. The Workshop might have mentioned Disraeli’s plagiarism in a few isolated articles to encourage him to pay more for their work, but they were not interested in decimating the career of somebody who kept using their services across his subsequent profitable political career (117).
There are only 4 mentions of a “ghostwriter” in this study. In one case, the borrowing between Michelle Obama and Melania Trump’s speeches is found to be the likely outcome of them sharing a ghostwriter: Meredeith McIver. The speechwriter took the blame, writing that she had made a misattribution slip. The news mentioned the cross-plagiarism between the First Ladies, but mostly left McIver out of this narrative (139-40).
In another case, William Meehan, “president at Jacksonville State University in Alabama”, who in part received this job by finishing a PhD just beforehand; a decade later, Meehan was accused of plagiarizing his dissertation from Carl Boening, who wrote his dissertation “under the direction of the same advisor”. 39% of chapter 2 were identical. In 2007, Meehan was accused of “plagiarizing a newspaper column”, but managed to shift blame onto his university publicist who “served as the president’s ghostwriter” (177).
The next mention appears in the even more interesting case where Vladimir Putin’s PhD Economics dissertation was accused of plagiarism in 2006; it had been submitted back in 1997 when he was serving as the Deputy Chief of the Presidential Staff to Boris Yeltsin. It borrowed from a translation of US business professors William King and David Cleland’s Strategic Planning and Policy (1978). The Brookings analysis of this plagiarism further accused this project of being part of a “diploma-mill… operation”, so that it was “Putin’s ghostwriter”, who had committed this plagiarism (56). A study of history dissertations from Moscow later found that “at least 50%” were “plagiarized” (57). The next mention is in this same section, as a Duma member’s dissertation plagiarized a chocolate book, changing “chocolate” to “meat” (58).
This has been a very interesting read. I strongly recommend anybody who is concerned about plagiarism, or ghostwriting around the world to read it. This is of as much interest to the general public, as to researchers at the top of this field.
A Canonical Book That Should Not Be Taught
William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury (New York: Penguin Books, June 2, 2026). $28: 288pp. ISBN: 978-0-143138-84-6.
*
“The Sound and the Fury, first published in 1929, is perhaps William Faulkner’s greatest book. It was immediately praised for its innovative narrative technique, and comparisons were made with Joyce and Dostoyevsky, but it did not receive popular acclaim until the late forties, shortly before Faulkner received the Nobel Prize for Literature. The novel reveals the story of the disintegration of the Compson family, doomed inhabitants of Faulkner’s mythical Yoknapatawpha County, through the interior monologues of the idiot Benjy and his brothers, Quentin and Jason. Featuring a new Foreword by Marilynne Robinson, this edition follows the text corrected in 1984 by Faulkner expert Noel Polk and corresponds as closely as possible to the author’s original intentions. Included also is the Appendix that Faulkner wrote for The Portable Faulkner in 1946, which he called the ‘key to the whole book.’”
While teaching this past semester, I realized during a lecture that mentioned The Sound and the Fury that the author seems to be making fun of the nonsensical yelling that permeates this book in its title. The joke seems to be that novels have become tirades that are so empty in sense that they are just a bunch of emotion-laden words. So, naturally I requested this book to take a closer look at this theory. Just what is “innovative” about Faulkner’s “narrative technique”. I mentioned before that Joyce’s work is not art, but is rather an exercise in childish, drunken nonsense. And this book heads in that direction, but fails to even execute an extreme of nonsensical diatribe, merely stopping at the semi-nonsensical. The immediate positive reviews were obviously purchased pufferies, and then a pop marketing campaign was supported with perhaps buying the Nobel Prize.
The “idiot” in this story is Benjy Compson (who is thirty-three), who completes the allusion to “Shakespeare’s” Macbeth in the line: “It is a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.” The nonsense this “idiot” Benjy is spewing is the point of Faulkner’s novel. The claim is that Benjy “cannot speak, nor dress himself, nor understand”, and yet he manages to communicate this nonsense-narrative. The editor attempts to explain how this is artistic in introductory comments. Derogatory terms are used throughout, occasionally with terms such as “invalids” and racial slurs. An artistic approach would have been to duplicate some kind of a language-free thought-process of somebody who is completely non-communicative, and does not understand what is happening. Instead, Faulkner has created a perspective that seems to be a hallucinogenic and alcohol-ridden delusion of an elderly English professor. The nonsense is too convoluted to be the work of an “idiot”, as it is instead making fun of the reader who is daring to penetrate the author’s nonsense by reading this book. The point seems to be to repel readers away by making this text unreadable. Critics tend to give positive reviews to books they do not want to read, and school readers tend to prefer saying a book is good to reading it far enough to explain why it is bad.
I hope no English instructors are assigning this book in high school or college classes. It is absolutely unreadable.
Collection of Puffed Short Mysteries from a Puffed Magazine
Andrew F. Gulli, and Lamia J. Gulli, Best of the Strand Magazine: 25 Years of Twists, Turns, and Tales from the Modern Masters of Mystery and Fiction (New York: Blackstone Publishing, November 4, 2025). $27: 466pp. ISBN: 979-8-228017-24-5.
**
An “anniversary collection” that “features over twenty-five… stories from internationally bestselling authors and literary legends. From the Nordic noir of Jo Nesbø and the lyricism of Tennessee Williams to the timeless imagination of Ray Bradbury and the courtroom wit of John Mortimer, these vivid tales reflect the range and tone that have defined The Strand Magazine for a quarter century. Alongside lost works by icons like Shirley Jackson are stories by contemporary bestsellers including Ruth Ware, Joyce Carol Oates, Jeffery Deaver, James Lee Burke, Michael Connelly, and R. L. Stine. With a foreword by Alexander McCall Smith, this collection offers a rare blend of depth, wit, and atmospheric storytelling.”
I requested this collection after submitting a few dozen fictional short stories in the past couple of years, and seeing only one of them published in a minor magazine. I hope to learn why these writers are consistently published, while others are rejected by top magazines.
The “Contents” is not too helpful as it does not name the bestselling writers, but rather only lists the names of the stories. Since the blurb puffed the bylines, I am more interested in these names as I dive into this project. The “Foreword” explains that this is a collection of stories in the mystery genre because of its popularity, and because this is the specialty of this magazine, which was first to publish Sherlock Holmes as well as other famous bylines. My stylometric data explains that the 19th century British famous authors all had their work ghostwritten by a Workshop that monopolized publishing. Thus, magazines like this one mostly published famous authors because they puffed or positively reviewed these same bylines in review-periodicals to bolster these bylines. In contrast, those who did not use ghostwriters would not have been accepted into this magazine, and would not have had their work reviewed by ghostwriters, if they managed to self-publish it. Thus, this intro that puffs the fame of these writers is not laudatory from my perspective. The Strand might have gone on a hiatus in 1950 because the last mainstream British ghostwriter died around a decade earlier, and the Workshop’s posthumous remnants might have run dry. A couple more introductions follow, which offer few insights.
The collection begins with Michael Connelly’s “Blue on Black”. It is written in the currently standard ultra-simplified and low-on-detail language of fiction. I skimmed to Ray Bradbury’s “Sixty-Six”, since I reviewed another Bradbury project in this set. In the Bradbury style, it begins by making fun of itself by describing itself as “kind of a murder mystery”. Then, excitement is added when the narrator explains he is a “motorcycle officer”. This is a denser story than Collelly’s. There are some details about whodunnit, and how characters look while doing things. Jo Nesbo’s “Animal Planet” might have been denser in the original, but the translation uses a simple vocabulary. It opens with questions about what gravity is. Then it digresses into a story about “swarms of mosquitoes”. Then there is H. G. Wells’ “The Haunted Ceiling”, which opens with a realistic study of a grotesque ceiling “discolored by smoke”. Joyce Carol Oates’ “Final Interview” is composed of short choppy sections, with ultra-short paragraphs. It is interesting in that it uses the second-person “you” for the main character’s perspective. The first section focuses on an annoying ticking. Nothing really happens. Then in the second section a furious argument begins when somebody asks if they can “record our conversation”. Many of the sentences are fragments, and the conversation goes around in nonsensical circles.
Given the puffery of this collection in the blurb as some of the best mystery stories ever written, readers are likely to be very disappointed with these contents. These are not these writers’ best-work, but rather seem to be what was accessible for this collection. The editor also seems to have deliberately chosen stories that are linguistically light, or have shorter words and paragraphs. This does not really make this book readable because too much of the content is nonsensical or includes empty matter. I do not recommend readers attempt reading this book unless they are set on being published in a major magazine and want to attempt to mimic this easy, and dull style.
A Puffery of a Magical Warmonger
Josh Dean, The Impossible Factory: The Remarkable True Story of Kelly Johnson and the Lockheed Skunk Works, America’s Innovation Machine (New York: Dutton, May 19, 2026). $35: 496pp. ISBN: 978-1-524745-51-6.
*
“The extraordinary true story of Lockheed Martin’s ‘Skunk Works’—the radical innovation hub that designed the greatest airplanes of the twentieth century—and the visionary who made it all possible. It began with a humble warehouse building in Burbank, California, and a charismatic young engineer named Kelly Johnson. In 1938, Johnson, who was then freshly out of the University of Michigan’s school of engineering, got the idea for a small, agile, disruptive engineering shop—one that could help America’s war machine innovate more quickly. By 1943, with the U.S. now in World War II and desperate for new technology, ‘Advanced Development Projects’—later nicknamed the ‘Skunk Works’—was born. During Johnson’s forty-seven years at Lockheed Martin, the Skunk Works developed at least half a dozen planes that would have been the capstone achievement of anyone else’s career.” The preceding section of this blurb attempts to sell this as a story of a little engineering shop, as if hiding that this is a story of a major part (Advanced Development Programs unit) of Lockheed Martin. The Lockheed Corporation had been founded in 1926/32, so it was over a decade old by the time this story starts, and Johnson was far from its first employee; he just managed to puff himself as the leader of this ADP program later on. The author seems to know that the story of a mega military contractor is not sympathetic, whereas the story of a solo engineer working in a stinky shop is emotionally appealing.
“There was the P-38 Lighting, which outdueled Axis pilots over Europe and the Pacific. The XP-80, America’s first ever fighter jet, which did indeed help the Allies win World War II. The Constellation, the first passenger plane with a pressurized cabin, revolutionized commercial air travel. The U-2 spy plane, which could reach an astonishing altitude of 70,000 feet, enabling it could fly dangerous covert missions in Soviet airspace during the height of the Cold War. And perhaps most famous of all, the A-12/SR-71 Blackbird, one of the most unusual, and iconic, planes ever designed. But the planes were only part of Kelly Johnson’s legacy. There was also his management style, which would come to shape organizations for decades to come. Under him, the Skunk Works’ structure—flat management, no red tape, extraordinary speed—quickly became the model for nurturing innovation, and eventually would fuel the nimble startups of Silicon Valley. Half a century before Mark Zuckerberg coined the motto ‘move fast and break things,’ Kelly Johnson was living that mantra—and at the same time helping the Department of Defense secure the fate of the free world.”
The note that Johnson’s style meant “flat management, no red tape” and “extraordinary speed” is basically saying that he promoted a culture of corruption, and no-accountability where profit was concerned. This was probably the cause of disasters associated with this company, including the 1993 C-130 prototype crash, and the 1970s bribery scandal (Japanese, German and Netherland officials were bribed for contracts). There are mentions of C-130 in this book, but they are pufferies that advertise its enormous size, and it being “one of the most versatile military planes in history”. After a long puffery the conclusion is that C-130 “has the longest, continuous military aircraft production in history”, but no mention of the 1993 crash. There are mentions of crashes throughout, but they tend to be of crashed aircraft designed by rivals, such as Hearst. There are also mentions of historical crashes that did not involve this company, such as the 1935 crash of Wiley and Rogers, as well as Amelia’s crash. When the company is involved, there are mostly stories of “nearly” crashing, which suggest the dexterity of the pilots, instead of ridiculing problems.
The word “bribery” only appears once near the end of the book. This mention coincides with the “L-1011 commercial jetliner debacle”: a financial flop that cost the company $2.5 billion between 1968 and 1984. Nothing is explained about the bribery problem, as instead there is a note that Skunk Works was desperate afterwards “to find new business, and fast”, and thus probably jumped right back into bribing still more vigorously.
I just cannot keep reading this book, as I am sure readers understand the gist of it: this is a marketing tool from this corporation designed to sell its warmongering by rephrasing it as a triumph of engineering. There is nothing positive or magical about what these guys have been doing to encourage endless wars, while creating vehicles of destruction. And the problem is not that this book describes an evil player, but rather that it does so by making them seem like a hero in this story, and including almost no descriptive details to color this fantastically fictional narrative. I do not recommend reading this book.
Comedic Rollercoaster Full of Saintly Preaching
Jason Crawford, God’s Fools: Saints, Prophets, Martyrs, and the Making of Modern Comedy (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, February 19, 2026). $25.20: 256pp. ISBN: 978-1-493080-60-1.
***
“Comedians play a complicated role in modern culture. They get up on public stages to talk about nothing in particular, with no expertise. They go out of their way to put their flaws, failures, and shabbiness on display. They break social taboos and orchestrate their own persecution. And through it all, they seem to be touched with a kind of spiritual charisma. Sometimes they seem like prophets, speaking truths that no one else would dare. Sometimes they seem like children, wide-eyed and innocent…” These are “the stories of these strange figures. He ranges over a motley crew of modern comedians, from the pioneers of early cinema to the provocateurs of contemporary stand-up. But he also follows the story of the comedian further back, into a surprising history of holy fools, wild prophets, and mischief-making saints. In his account, comic performers from Charlie Chaplin to the present mingle with older figures like Francis of Assisi, Symeon the Fool, the laughing martyrs Perpetua, Lawrence, and Akiva, and the weird hermit Thecla of Iconium. As he uncovers the through-lines that connect these ancient lives to the world of modern comedy, Crawford asks how comedians still fashion themselves as prophetic and sacred characters. He explores the things comedy shares with sacred experience: how jokes are like prophecies, and how comic resolutions are like apocalyptic visions…”
The first chapter that attracted my interest is “Chapter 1: The Patron Saint of Laughter: Francis of Assisi”, who is reported to have “spent the early months of 1225 in total darkness.” A horror story about his various illnesses is then related. A couple of pages describe the horrors he faced. Doctors did not help, as one “perforated his ears with a hot iron.” He wanted to die. Theological philosophy follows in which Assisi declares that his brothers should go into the world to preach the “gospel” with a “new song” that involved “comic laughter”. Instead of explaining just what this comedic theological performance involved, a puffery follows of Assisi’s performative style. Then, the narrative describes his childhood. His refusal to be a wealthy businessman within his family is lauded. He is said to have danced and sung as a youth. While this is a curious biography, it is done in a manner that is painfully stretched out. Even descriptions of him dancing and singing include empty phrases such as: “no one seems to have looked too carefully into its inner workings”, or mentions that he was “roving around in strange garments the hem of which everyone wanted to touch” (31). How can the author know who wanted to touch Assisi’s garments, since nobody said this in the historical record? Those reading this book to learn about comedians would be very frustrated to instead be reading about medieval torturous medicine, and the madness of a dancing-preacher.
The introduction digresses about the irrationality of calling Pryor “holy”, but attempts to convince readers he had “spiritual charisma”. There are digressions about the difference between the identity of Richard Pryor and “Richard Pryor”: or between his identity as a comedian vs as a human. This seems to be asking about Pryor’s comedic ghostwriter, but avoiding making a direct claim (10). Most of the stories are digressive, and lacking in researched details. Pryor is puffed as a Christ-like stake-sacrificer (52). At least “Chapter 4: The Prophet Confesses: Richard Pryor” begins with an exciting intro that notes that in 1978 Priory “invented the postlapsarian stand-up set”, wherein you have to perform after being hospitalized over a coke heart attack, and shooting up a “new wife’s car” (93). The author then returns to examine the details of this confessional comedic approach a couple pages later.
This book is a rollercoaster of interesting and very boring incidents. The philosophy or comedic theory is also unpredictably varied: some of it is insightful, while other parts are trite and irrelevant. Anybody who does not mind this kind of ride would probably enjoy reading this book. A comedy researcher might be rather frustrated as they attempt to make sense of all of this.
A Collection of Disappointing Modern Fiction
Rabih Alameddine; John Freeman, The Penguin Book of the International Short Story (New York: Penguin, April 7, 2026). $30: Hardcover: 448pp. ISBN: 978-0-593834-13-8.
***
“The best in short fiction from around the world, from celebrated anthologist and author John Freeman and award-winning novelist Rabih Alameddine… Writers from different nations, languages, and sensibilities come together in a globe-spanning and long overdue tour of modern fiction. In ‘Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,’ Haruki Murakami brings us a man who believes a giant amphibian is enlisting him to protect his city from an impending earthquake.” This story echoes the opening of Kafka’s Metamorphosis, as a giant front is found in an ordinary apartment. The dialogue that follows is reasonably coherent, but it is a very silly conversation, as opposed what I would expect of literary greatness.
“In ‘War of the Clowns,’ Mozambique’s Mia Couto sketches a perfect allegory for our divided culture.” It begins by acknowledging that this story is a work of “common nonsense” in its description of “two clowns… arguing”. Events escalate, as the clowns shortly become violent. This is a very absurd and silly story: not particularly good.
“In the predecessor story to her iconic novel The Vegetarian, Han Kang depicts a protagonist quietly undergoing an unlikely transformation.” It begins with a light romantic description of sunlight, before sinister “bruises” on the narrator’s wife are introduced.
“A Colm Tóibín character thinks, ‘I do not even believe in Ireland’”. This story begins in Texas, on a romantic reflection about the moon. It rambles about shopping at a store, before circling around her mother being dead for six years.
Meanwhile, “Carol Bensimon reflects from Brazil, ‘All great ideas seem like bad ones at some point.’” While this sentence seems deep, the surrounding paragraphs do not actually present any ideas. The previous sentence mentions the “filling” of a tank of gas. The following sentence describes staying at “little hotels”. No ideas in proximity: it is just an empty claim that is seemingly totally ill-suited for the rest of this story. It ends with a continuation of this journey that becomes an “irresistible failure”. “Salman Rushdie brings us to unsettled rural India…”
I had hope for this story because Rushdie is known for dense prose, but it does not deliver. It begins with a light description of a boy who is described as “a real donkey’s child” who cannot be taught because he made the mistake of falling for an “attractive” thief’s widow. Her thief husband had died leaving her with children, and so she was desperate to marry. This story is interesting enough, but it is also very plain and simple, and just lacks the specificity of reality. There are details about a wedding and a cheap fan, but anybody in any country could have written this description; nothing proves with vivid details that this is uniquely Indian narrative, as its summary claims.
“Olga Tokarczuk to an ugly woman exhibit at the circus, Abdellah Taïa to the queer Arab world, Ted Chiang to a far-off galaxy. The United States is far from the center of the literary universe. This anthology is reminiscent of iconic director Bong Joon Ho’s line about overcoming ‘the one-inch-tall barrier of subtitles’ to enter a new world of film—the work of thoughtful and accomplished translators opens the door wide for those curious about what lies beyond the Western canon and classroom. Writers from six continents, ranging from new voices to literary icons, each offer a window into a distinct point of view…”
It is important for modern English teachers and researchers to learn about what great writing is happening in recent decades. Monopolistic control of the press in earlier centuries generated a strict canon of what was allowed to be taught as literature. Recently this grip on print has been loosened, and with it the puffery of just a few texts as superior above the rest. This leaves teachers unsure if anything of literary interest has been written since the canon faded a century ago. This is one of the reasons collections like this one propose a practical taster of what is out there.
While I have high hopes for modern fiction, this is not the collection to support its standing. I do not know why these stories were chosen to represent modernity, but their quality does not seem to be the reason. They seem to highlight the flatness, dullness, lack of reality, and detail in modern existence. Characters have nothing deep to say. Even reflections on heavy subjects, such as death, are treated by rephrasing and digressing on them, instead of digging towards some new finding about how humans process death. It is possible that some readers are looking for light and entertaining fiction, and those might enjoy browsing through this book.
A Subversive Attack on Honest Scientists
Matt Kaplan, I Told You So! Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right (New York: St. Martin’s Press, February 24, 2026). $30: 288pp. ISBN: 978-1-250372-27-7.
**
A “work of popular science about scientists who have had to fight for their revolutionary ideas to be accepted—from Darwin to Pasteur to modern day Nobel Prize winners. For two decades, Matt Kaplan has covered science for the Economist. He’s seen breakthroughs often occur in spite of, rather than because of, the behavior of the research community, and how support can be withheld for those who don’t conform or have the right connections… Kaplan narrates the history of the 19th century Hungarian physician Ignaz Semmelweis, who realized that Childbed fever—a devastating infection that only struck women who had recently given birth—was spread by doctors not washing their hands. Semmelweis was met with overwhelming hostility by those offended at the notion that doctors were at fault, and is a prime example of how the scientific community often fights new ideas, even when the facts are staring them in the face… Some” cases “are familiar, like Galileo being threatened with torture and Nobel laureate Katalin Kariko being fired when on the brink of discovering how to wield mRNA—a finding that proved pivotal for the creation of the Covid-19 vaccine. Others less so, like researchers silenced for raising safety concerns about new drugs, and biologists ridiculed for revealing major flaws in the way rodent research is conducted. Kaplan shows how the scientific community can work faster and better by making reasonably small changes to the forces that shape it.”
This is an ambitious topic, so it is troubling that the author starts the “Introduction” with light humor and with himself, noting that he had once been a scientist before becoming a reporter. And he describes heavy drinking here as well. He goes to a poster session during a conference. He is describing a lecture about dinosaurs that is met with “nasty language” seemingly because he is describing strange gender behaviors of these animals. This idea is suddenly interrupted, and a different scientist comes into view, whose finding about red blood sells caused a “major upheaval”. Insufficient clear details are given to explain why these cases were shocking or of continued interest. Only near the end of this introduction, does he more clearly explain that a researcher had proposed that “the mighty T.rex had traits indicating that it was a scavenger, rather than a top predator”. The moral is that this earlier-career scientist managed to have this idea heard because she was protected by “Jack”, who stepped in as her savior. If female scientists need male saviors to present new research, there is indeed a problem in the sciences. But the author seems to take this as an uplifting story of triumph over adversity.
“Chapter 1” opens with a point I have been pondering lately: did Hippocrates the claimed “father of medicine” actually exist, since he is only briefly mentioned by “Plato”, and no evidence of his existence survives. I would go further to argue that “Plato” was written millennia after the date his work is claimed to have been composed. But this doubt about Hippocrates is an important step to arrive at a true history of scientific “progress”. But generalities follow. The author goes on to make abstract claims about Hippocrates having just proven he never existed.
This is just a poorly written book. It mixes a conversational style with long sentences, and digressiveness. There are citation notes in the text, but few quotes. Assumptions are made about what people thought or believed without supporting these theoretical leaps. I do not recommend reading this book. It is an important message, but the author seems to be arguing against scientists speaking out for the truth by making truth-finding highly convoluted and boring.
A Book-Long TEDTalk Is Too Long of a Talk
Carmine Gallo, Viral Voices: From TED Talks to TikTok, Persuasive Communication Skills for the Digital Age (New York: Macmillan Publishers, February 24, 2026). $19.99: Audio Book. ISBN: 978-1-250371-96-6.
**
“The brain does not pay attention to boring things! In our attention economy, it’s more important than ever to cut through the noise online… Available exclusively in audio”, it “provides tools to succeed in our digital world and tactics anyone can use to grab attention and keep it. Gallo breaks down how effective communicators from Mr. Beast to Barack Obama inspire their audiences and craft stories that stick in the mind. Through exclusive interviews with business leaders, speech writers, and influencers such as Richard Branson, Guy Kawasaki, and Nancy Duarte as well as clips from historical speeches and the most engaging online videos and digital content, Gallo shows that ancient principles remain highly relevant for influencing people today, even across modern platforms. He also demonstrates how we can bring classic tools like the three-act structure and ‘beats’ into the future as we navigate the implications of artificial intelligence. And, backed by psychology, listeners will learn how to overcome the fear of public speaking by understanding how the human brain works.” It “will give even the most timid of speakers the tools to transform their ideas into unforgettable moments, the skills to influence people, and the ability to craft and deliver content with confidence—online and offline…”
I listened to this and the following audio books from cover-to-cover, but I cannot really recommend others follow me inside these projects. There are moments in this book that repeat some of the rhetorical lessons I mention in my Rhetoric textbook, such as the commonly-cited Aristotelian triangle (the pathetic appeal to emotions, logical argumentation, and proof of the author’s ethics or credentials). However, he keeps repeating or hitting these points in very slow cycles, as he barely introduces anything new beyond what these three sides of rhetoric are. He puffs these elements up, and quotes or interviews modern speakers who elaborate on these same points, as if to avoid introducing any new strategies. He insists that writers should avoid being boring, but he does so without finding a way to make this subject fun. He claims he can help advertisers sell themselves online, but mostly recommends being brief, and simple. Who needs to listen to a book for this advice? And the author frequently puffs his wife, with whom he does some of his composition lectures. I feel obligated to say something positive about a writer who, like myself, is trying to teach people how to write. But I hope my lectures on writing are not as empty on useful content as these are. Perhaps because it is rather late in the evening, I lack the energy to complain about this book any further. I do not recommend the purchase of this audio-book. If it is available at your local library, you can try listening to a bit to see if you agree with this assessment.
A Combination of Dullness and Curiosities About Money
David McWilliams, The History of Money: A Story of Humanity (New York: Columbia University Press, November 11, 2025). $32.99: Audio Book: 416pp. ISBN: 978-1-250408-18-1.
***
This book “charts the relationship between humans and money—from clay tablets in Mesopotamia to cryptocurrency in Silicon Valley. The story of humanity is inextricable from that of money. No innovation has defined our own evolution so thoroughly and changed the direction of our planet’s history so dramatically. And yet despite money’s primacy, most of us don’t truly understand it… Money is central to every aspect of our civilization, from the political to the artistic. ‘Money defines the relationship between worker and employer, buyer and seller, merchant and producer. But not only that: it also defines the bond between the governed and the governor, the state and the citizen. Money unlocks pleasure, puts a price on desire, art and creativity. It motivates us to strive, achieve, invent and take risks. Money also brings out humanity’s darker side, invoking greed, envy, hatred, violence and, of course, colonialism.’ McWilliams takes us across the world, from the birthplace of money in ancient Babylon to the beginning of trade along the Silk Road, from Marrakech markets to Wall Street. Along the way, we meet a host of innovators, emperors, frauds, and speculators, who have disrupted society and transformed the way we live.”
Out of these two audio-books, this is a better option. It narrates several relatively brief anecdotes related to money. The attached monetary theory is rather simplistic. But there are curious explanations that put a spin I have not heard before on the tulip-bubble, and other economic adventures. I found myself recalling some of these cases as I was teaching in the middle of listening to this book. A lot more could have been said about how money contributed to starting the slave trade, monarchic-rule, and warfare. And it needs an edit to delete some of the places where the author circles around some single point several times until the listener tunes out. I vaguely recall bits of curious information about monetary systems. But most of this book has now faded from memory. I think I could find a lot more interesting anecdotes by googling money and any of the above-mentioned topics. For example, the Silk Road has been explained by recent historians to not have been a road, but rather mostly an ocean journey for merchants. This book treats most subjects romantically or by trusting popular accounts.
Those who work in money-related fields might enjoy listening to somebody explore this topic in details they might not have known somebody can talk about it in. I enjoyed it enough while listening to keep listening to it, so it is a pretty good audio-book. If I had been reading it, I could not have had the patience to sit through all of it. So, I recommend for libraries to acquire it in an audio format, if they are choosing among options.
Anaphora Literary Press 
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