WHICH WAY IS NORTH? AND WHY ANYWAY? PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE BEGAN SHARING James Vincent’s London Review of Books assessment of Jerry Brotton’s Four Points of the Compass: The Unexpected History of Direction. Here in Part … Continue reading
WHICH WAY IS NORTH? AND WHY ANYWAY? PART 1
JAMES VINCENT REVIEWS JERRY BROTTON’S FOUR POINTS OF THE COMPASS in the London Review of Books, April 15, 2025. Early on, he struck a responsive chord with me: “Every compass … Continue reading
WANNA AIM FOR AN F1 CAREER?
AS EARLY AS THE ALAIN PROST/AYRTON SENNA GENERATION, you’d wanna drive a go-kart as a kid. (Senna’s dad built his first one). Michael Schumacher is a later example of early … Continue reading
LEST WE FORGET
BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE, FEBRUARY 2025, OFFERS AN INTERVIEW with historian Laurence Rees; his topic, “the history of the Nazi regime yields warnings—but that frighteningly few people are interested in learning … Continue reading
GRIMM TALES
NO TYPO HERE. THE BROTHERS GRIMM: A BIOGRAPHY is a book by Ann Schmiesing given a review by Colin Burrow “Ogres Are Cool,” London Review of Books, March 20, 2025. … Continue reading
KINGS PART 2
WE’RE IN THE MIDST OF TOM JOHNSON’S LRB REVIEW of the Burt/Partington book Arise, England: Six Kings and the Making of the English State. Here in Part 2, we continue … Continue reading
KINGS PART 1
YEARS AGO ENGLISH PAL DAVID ROBERTS, husband of Anita, the latter Innes Ireland’s secretary, recited to me a poem recounting England’s rulers from William I (the Conquerer to some; the … Continue reading
THE LRB, GRENADA’S ERIC GAIRY, UFOS, AND PRESIDENT CARTER’S INVITATION TO SATURN’S TITANIA PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE SET THE STAGE FOR LRB LETTERS connecting the words of our title. My sincere acknowledgement and thanks to the three writers, Paul Sutton, Bearsden, East Dunbartonshire; Robert Hunter, … Continue reading
THE LRB, GRENADA’S ERIC GAIRY, UFOS, AND PRESIDENT CARTER’S INVITATION TO SATURN’S TITANIA PART 1
FIRST, I STRESS THAT THE LATE JIMMY CARTER was one of our most technically trained of presidents: He was a Naval Academy graduate eventually specializing on nuclear submarines. Thus, his … Continue reading
DIGITAL OVERLOAD—TWO BOOKS (HOW QUAINT BUT EFFECTIVE)
JENNIFER SZALAI’S “How Big Tech Mined Our Attention and Broke Our Politics” appeared in The New York Times Book Review (alas, perhaps behind a paywall). Yet it contains tidbits well … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 