I was re-reading some fiction and chuckling as I turned pages, with an occasional frisson of emotion and an appreciation for the use of the language … when it struck me. I much prefer English authors to American authors. Which I find odd to say, as an American … but also undeniable. And this preference […]

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Some sports fans might be amused at the topics that come up on a sports desk while producing a newspaper. Arguments, declarations, declamations … it’s like being in a sports bar 365 days a year. And today’s topic? The ugliest athletes. Any sport.

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I first read The Lord of the Rings when I was 12 years old. That was quite some time ago. Before J.R.R. Tolkien‘s trilogy was consumed by every teen on the planet. (Actually, I bought it almost by accident. No one I knew had read it or recommended it. I saw it in the neighborhood […]

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Fifty Shades of Grey, a bad book and now a bad movie, will not be coming to the UAE. Not unless the movie’s distributors make 35 minutes of cuts from its 125 minutes of running time. The movie is not banned from the UAE. UAE authorities are happy to have it appear here — as […]

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I spent a chunk of Christmas Day re-reading For Whom the Bell Tolls, which is Ernest Hemingway‘s book set during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-39. It certainly ranks among his three best books, with A Sun Also Rises (Paris and the Lost Generation) and A Farewell to Arms (Though he won the Nobel prize […]

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I am a huge fan of the author Alan Furst. On this blog, a year ago, I declared him to be the American John le Carre — and by no means was I the first to suggest that. Actually, Furst is better. Even before Le Carre turned into a political bore. Since I discovered Furst, […]

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Waited all of 10 days or so to buy the 19th Jack Reacher book, entitled Personal, which came out on September 2. When I got around to reading it … I was done on the second day. How does this version compare to the others?

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How I managed to be nearly unaware of this book (and not read it) for 15 years is something of a mystery. I should have heard of it, made note of it, bought it and read it in 1999, when it was published. The Miracle of Castel di Sangro, by Joe McGinniss. McGinniss died earlier […]

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The centennial of the start of World War I, the greatest European disaster in the past two centuries, is coming up fast. The 100th anniversary of the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, by the Serbian zealot Gavrilo Princip, is on June 28. The event led directly to the outbreak of war, on July 28, […]

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A year ago, a couple of Harvard kids decided to visit all 30 major league ballparks in 30 days. By driving from one city to the next — to the next and next and next. It made for the road trip from hell. The sort of trip better as an amusing concept than a punishing […]

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