Books
Larry Charles is by every standard a seminal figure in contemporary humor, on the tube and in movie theaters. Why doesn’t everyone know his name
There is a moral to this story, besides the obvious one, that murder is a horrible crime whether the body is found or not. If there are wealthy women with weaknesses to exploit, predators will find them.
We have a biography that reads like a novel in its range and intensity, a biography that forces us to dig deeper into our own preconceived prejudices and understand another man — a famous writer — in ways that neither he nor we might have ever thought possible.
Mick Herron’s prose, it must be said, remains top-notch, chock full of puns and timely references, as well as colorful dialogue. But the premise of this successful series of espionage thrillers is beginning to show some wear.
This novel is as fresh and charming as any contemporary work this critic has read in ages.
By Trevor Fairbrother The Queer Lens project made me think about queer culture and camera culture as distinct phenomena that began in the Victorian era: each was a manifestation of modernity. The latest exhibition that Paul Martineau has curated at the J. Paul Getty Museum is titled Queer Lens: A History of Photography and features…
Film noir’s penetrating, knowing diagnosis of, and response to, corruption and venality prepares us for the dank turpitude that lurks in places both highfalutin and hidden.

Book Commentary: Three Weeks Before the Mast — Reading “Moby Dick”
A slow thinker, I read 600 pages into “Moby Dick” before putting my finger on the book’s key tension. It’s between Ishmael’s intense and ecological whale love and the central story which chronicles the wanton murdering of whales, man’s unconcern with destroying the natural world.
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