Once I thought that to be human was the highest aim a man could have, but now I see that it was meant to destroy me. Today I am proud to say that I am inhuman, that I have nothing to do with creeds…
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…
Everyone has his private tragedy. It’s in the blood now—misfortune, ennui, grief, suicide. The atmosphere is saturated with disaster, frustration, futility. Scratch and scratch—until there’s no skin left. However, the effect on me is exhilarating. Instead of being discouraged or depressed, I enjoy it. I…
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….
I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I now desire to teach in this manner that he has become a friend of the Americans. I wish him to learn the habits of the whites and to be educated as their sons…
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…