Im still lamenting the death of Jim Harrison. Here’s my favorite poem of his. It could easily be a testament. Losing him was like losing a brother. Bridge by Jim Harrison Most of my life was spent building a bridge out over the…
Sante, Luc. The Other Paris, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2015 (306pp. $28) It is of no little interest that Paris contains some 3,195 streets, 330 passages (encompassing both arcades and alleys), 314 avenues, 2923 impasses, 189 villas (enclosed mansions, or house groupings like…
Acemoglu, Darin and Robinson, James. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, Crown Publishers, New York, 2012 (529pp.$30) Lewis Lapham, renowned editor at Harper’s for many years and himself a wary student of history once wrote, “History is a work in…
Gessner, David. All the Wild That Remains: Edward Abbey, Wallace Stegner, and the American West. W.W. Norton and Co., New York, 2015 (354pp.$26.95). Twenty percent of the trees in the Rocky Mountains have died in the past ten years. Scientists predict that many more will…
On Saturday, March 26 Jim Harrison died at his cabin near Patagonia, Arizona. He’d been ill and his wife of many years had died the previous October. His loss is grievous one. I’ll miss his books and I’ll miss his wisdom in my life….
Bausch, Richard. Before, During, After. Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2014 (345pp.$26.95) A roaring tedium clogs nearly every page of Richard Bausch’s new novel, Before, During, After, so-named because the principal events of the narrative are sandwiched around the World Trade Center terror attack of…
Millard, Candice. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, Doubleday, New York, 2011 (339pp.$28.95) In 1829 Abram and Eliza Garfield bought a hundred acres of heavily forested wilderness (at $2/acre) 16 miles from the tiny Ohio…
Jim Harrison died last Saturday at his cabin outside Patagonia, Arizona. He’d been at a cowboy saloon earlier, drank some vodka, talked to some pals, and went home. He was found later at home, dead of a heart attack. He was one of my constant heroes. I’ve…
Davidson, Peter (ed.), George Orwell: Diaries, Liveright Publishing/W.W.Norton, New York, 2012 (597pp.$39.95) One hundred million people died during the various ideological and political catastrophes of the 20th century—wars, famines and holocausts brought on by the tripartite clashing of imperial capitalist colonialism, nationalism, fascism and totalitarian…
Wiencek, Henry. Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2012 (336pp.$28). Having informed the world that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, Thomas Jefferson proceeded to conduct a forty-year…