In @olreview.bsky.social, Michael Adams reviews a winning new Stephen Sondheim biography by Daniel Okrent, who "works in the sweet spot between fandom and fanaticism" openlettersreview.com/posts/stephe...

My my! I haven't had "Ukrainian rent boys" in my news feed in well over a decade! Very nostalgic ...

Regarding the day's speculation, I can 100% honestly say: there's literally nothing that would make me happier.

On the one hand, they claim they're not a conspiracy theorist nut-job. On the other hand, they have ever in their life, even once, used the term "psy-op."

Reading a new book on Rasputin tonight, so of course I revisited his greatest portrayal on film: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rFE...

Trump has made it clear: no more "stupid rules of engagement." Officially a rogue state.

In the picture of his handshake rash, you'll notice the cartilage of his ear, the one we were told was shot in 2024. Amazing how the cartilage has not only completely healed but completely healed into the exact same configuration it's had for his entire life.

It's not a rash! It's just that he's SUCH a popular President, constantly shaking people's hands using the back of his neck!

The most incomprehensible sentence in English, apparently? "I work from home."

I originally thought this motto was a warning to the American people. Now I see it was a promise to Donald Trump.

Remember: You don't have ADHD, you're not on any kind of spectrum, you don't suffer from any food allergies, and you're not experiencing "decision fatigue."

Found today in a book. We are not amused!

My latest review for Open Letters ⬇️ “On the stylistic front, Unger’s prose is unobtrusive, direct and delightfully prosecutorial when a swine hoves into view. This book isn’t an obsessive doctrinal diatribe, it is a fact by fact rebuttal of the official story.”

All these people writing articles & making videos about how there are no "books for men" anymore? It would be nice if the people writing those articles & making those videos goddam read more than 10 goddam books a goddam year so they goddam knew what they were goddam talking about. Yeesh.

Giles Harvey writes discerningly on "the fog of enriching implication" in Colm Tóibín's Eilis Lacey novels, "Brooklyn" from 2009 and last year's sequel "Long Island" www.nybooks.com/articles/202...

"The Venetian footfall and the Venetian cry," recalled Henry James when writing years later about "The Portrait of a Lady", "all talk there, wherever uttered, having the pitch of a call across the water - come in once more at the window."

From 10 years ago: Jedediah Purdy's "After Nature," written back in an era when science & religious faith were still separate things and we still had a chance - www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

Aretino's poor pet monkey, Monticchio, used to imitate Titian when he was painting at his easel. Visitors said Monticchio worked hard at his paintings, but nobody bought or preserved any of them.

Eternal reminder to all those procrastinating ponderers out there: "Seven Types of Ambiguity" was written in two weeks by a 21-year-old undergraduate. Stop scrolling and get to work.

“One of McGahern’s most striking childhood memories in ‘All Will Be Well’ is of reading indiscriminately from library books with such deep concentration that his sisters removed his shoes and placed a hat on his head without him noticing.” @ssacks.bsky.social on Irish novelist John McGahern:

"Dryden's discovery in the 1660s was not that plays and poems are worth discussing," writes the great critic George Watson, "but that they are worth discussing in print."

From 10 years ago - and from a 100% completely different world - Timothy Snyder's dark, brilliant "BlackEarth": www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

"I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation" - Somerset Maugham, who in 90 years experienced humorous resignation precisely 0 times.

the premise of Good Will Hunting is so funny. "What if there was a boy who was a once in a lifetime genius, handsome, everybody likes him, but tragically he is from South Boston a handicap that threatens to ruin his entire life"

"He loved the atmosphere of mystery: through labyrinthine sentences we pursue a dangerous precision" - a mid-century critic, very intriguingly, on the novels of Henry James

"There is no doubt that Thomas Wolfe was touched with genius. But genius is not so rare as all that" - so said Struthers Burt, innocent of genius, now completely forgotten.

"I want to reach out with my records to the lonely sheep rancher in Nevada, or the farmer in Kansas, and bring him a glimpse of the ideal world of beauty and inspiration" -- the great Stokowski, speaking a rare, clear truth to Irving Kolodin

From 10 years ago, my review of Jane Dawson's excellent biography of terrifying old John Knox: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

"I heard James Jones in his National Book Award acceptance speech struggle bravely, and in a sense admirably, with his Elizabethan references," Knopf's crusty old Harold Strauss once said. "His awkwardness suggested what his book also suggests: that he is not a well-read man." Ouch.

From 10 years ago, a lovely scholarly edition of the major (but still minor, as I try to explain) poetry of Emerson: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

New from @columbiaup.bsky.social, a really interesting new look at the films & career of George Cukor, written with aplomb by veteran movie buff Joseph McBride. My @olreview.bsky.social review: openlettersreview.com/posts/george...

From 10 years ago, a wonderful book about Thoreau's Walden: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From 10 years ago, one of my initial clashes with the odious fad that's now known as "autofiction": www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From @liveright.bsky.social, a crisp, lively new translation of "All Quiet on the Western Front." My @olreview.bsky.social review: openlettersreview.com/posts/all-qu...

When Pope Pius X & Pierpont Morgan met in 1905, both men were nervous. This is usually explained by the presence of the officious translator in between. But it could also be that Morgan was Evil Incarnate and Bepi was later canonized. Maybe they just recognized each other.

I somehow let 10 years slip by between when I first read William Vollmann's "The Dying Grass" and when I took it up again. I write about it on the new revived Stevereads, to which you're cordially invited to subscribe! stevedonoghue.substack.com/p/the-dying-...

New from the good folks at @reaktionbooks.bsky.social, a new book on everything we can know or reasonably infer about the life of Plato! My @olreview.bsky.social review: openlettersreview.com/posts/plato-...

From 10 years ago: my review of a brave but ultimately futile attempt by Robert Crews to assess a revitalization of Afghanistan: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From 10 years ago, Alison Weir writes a big novel about the infamous Anne Boleyn: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From ten years ago: after a long time away from the reviewing world, I came back to it in time to review a big fat historical novel by the beloved Sharon Kay Penman: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From 10 years ago, a debut (about upper middle class Connecticut divorce, of course) that actually managed to be good: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

From 10 years ago: a terrific, broody installment in the cases of Commissario Ricciardi, the solemn Neapolitan policeman who can hear the dead: www.stevedonoghue.com/review-archi...

"Many of the greatest classics were written, assuredly, without children in mind, and were taken over by children who cheerfully disregarded what they could not understand and cherished what they could" - Henry Steel Commanger, in 1953, perfectly describing BookTok.

When Max Eastman & Ernest Hemingway met in Max Perkins's office, they immediately attacked each other (two big guys, and Eastman had mocked Hemingway in print). Eventually, Perkins broke it up. "Why'd you wait so long?" he was asked. "I wanted to see who was the better writer," he said.

FR Leavis thought "The Ambassadors" by Henry James was a crashing bore of a book. But Leavis himself was a carping, whinging, dogmatic, brittle, pedantic gas-bag. So does that make "The Ambassadors" good? Is there such a thing as hate-liking a book? (Guess I'll re-read it)