Reviews
All is fair in love, war, and fashion: from court fashion to fast fashion
Saija Wilson reviews Spanish Fashion in the Age of Velázquez: A Tailor at the Court of Philip IV by Amanda Wunder (Yale University Press, 2024)
The many men, so beautiful!/ And they all dead did lie:/ And a thousand thousand slimy things/Lived on; and so did I.
Elizabeth Stice reviews The Killing Season: The Autumn of 1914, Ypres, and the Afternoon That Cost Germany The War by Robert Cowley (Random House, 2025)
From the Stacks: Dreams about H.M. The Queen
A “From the Stacks” piece by Joel Tannenbaum about DREAMS ABOUT H.M. THE QUEEN and other members of the Royal Family by Brian Masters.
World War II and the Fight for Freedom
Elizabeth Stice reviews 1942: When World War II Engulfed the Globe by Peter Fritzsche (Basic Books, 2025)
Yes! we have no bananas, but we do have a weekly email
Did you realize we have a Substack? You can subscribe!
Parting with parents: sweet or sorrow?
Don McCulloch reviews The Power of Parting: Finding Peace and Freedom Through Family Estrangement by Eamon Dolan (Penguin Random House, 2025).
Capitalism in a bottle: what could go wrong?
Kimberly Bain reviews Sweet and Deadly: How Coca-Cola Spreads Disinformation and Makes Us Sick by Murray Carpenter (MIT Press, 2025)
Not a Road to Nowhere
Elizabeth Stice reviews The Essential Book of Pickup Trucks by Fred Haefele (Bison Books, 2025).
Murky Ecstasy
Geoffrey Reiter reviews Treatises on Dust by Timothy Jarvis (Swan River Press, 2024)
A Contest for the Ages: Deciphering Cuneiform
Elizabeth Stice reviews The Mesopotamian Riddle: An Archaeologist, a Soldier, a Clergyman, and the Race to Decipher the World’s Oldest Writing by Joshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
Have Memoir and Geiger Counter, Will Travel
Elizabeth Stice reviews Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance by Joe Dunthorne (Simon & Schuster, 2025)
There’s No Place Like…Home? Addressing Housing Insecurity in Five Acts
Kimberly Bain reviews There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America by Brian Goldstone (Penguin Random House, 2025)
Jane Austen: Defense against the Dark Arts?
Geoffrey Reiter reviews Jane Austen’s Darkness by Julia Yost (Wiseblood Books, 2024)
History underfoot and on display
Elizabeth Stice reviews Threads of Empire: A History of the World in Twelve Carpets by Dorothy Armstrong (St. Martin’s Press, 2025)
California frenemies: an unsent letter
Michael Jimenez reviews Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik (Scribner, 2024)
Book Club: “Joy in the Morning” by PG Wodehouse
We’re doing an online Book Club! Spend six weeks reading Joy in the Morning by PG Wodehouse with us!
The Poor Devils
Elizabeth Stice reviews The Writer’s Lot: Culture and Revolution in Eighteenth-Century France by Robert Darnton (Belknap Press, 2025)
Can We Still Believe in Goodness?
Sarah Selden reviews The Lime Kiln and Other Enchanted Spaces by Geoffrey Reiter (Hippocampus Press, 2025)