Books
387 results
Page 35
"Rocket Girl': Forgotten woman engineer
She rescued Wernher von Braun (who couldn't remember her name)
Rocket Girl turns the spotlight on a forgotten heroine of America's space program. But was she forgotten because she was a woman, or because she was an engineer?
Articles
6 minute read
Miriam Kotzin's 'The Body's Bride'
One woman's betrothals and betrayals
In an age when formal verse is out of favor, Miriam Kotzin works mostly in traditional forms. Her meters scan; her lines most often rhyme. This collection s tautly unified around the central theme and image of the female body in all the stages and conditions of life.
Articles
5 minute read
Why was 'The Big Sort' overlooked?
The tribalizing of America
A five-year-old book offers an explanation for Americans' contemporary divisiveness that's still relevant. Yet I haven't met a single person who's heard of it, much less actually read it.
Articles
5 minute read
The lure of science fiction: an insider's view
On the shores of unexplored seas: Yesterday, today and tomorrow
Do readers turn to science fiction because they're bored? Or because it offers a vision of the future universe that only our minds can comprehend?
Articles
4 minute read
"Black Star Nairobi': Kenyan fiction and fact
Truth is stranger (and more inspiring, too)
Black Star Nairobi contrives a fictitious globetrotting adventure among three Kenyan pals fighting international terrorism. Meanwhile, in real-life Kenya, a much more astonishing and uplifting story is unfolding.
Articles
3 minute read
"Guns at Last Light': Hitler's defeat
Hitler's defeat: The ultimate human drama
Rick Atkinson's humane insight and astute eye for detail produce an absorbing retelling of an oft-told tale: the final year of World War II in Europe.
Articles
4 minute read
John Lukacs's 'History and the Human Condition'
A pragmatic Cold Warrior's last hurrah
Was World War II necessary? How about the Cold War? History and the Human Condition places the historian John Lukacs squarely in the humanist tradition of the public commentator who invites us to reflect on the values of a shared past, unlike the trendy and sometimes trivial work that characterizes too much of his profession today.
Articles
8 minute read
Two male authors, at opposite extremes
Wet dreams and clean pants, or: What do women want from men?
One best-selling male author writes books about a neutered man; another about a stallion near a mare in perpetual heat. When I see the kind of books that women read, I feel embarrassed for my gender.
Articles
3 minute read
The Third World in America
When Nigerians and Pakistanis start to think like Americans
Can today's global conflicts be disguised as love stories? Yes, and very effectively, when the lovers are Nigerians or Pakistanis studying at Ivy League universities.
Articles
5 minute read
The comic art of Al Williamson
The power of sex (and visual images too), or: 50 women I'll never forget
Through the tilt of their heads, the sideways glances of their languid eyes, the inviting way they leaned against doorways, Al Williamson's women tapped impulses within us prepubescent boys that we couldn't fully identify but also couldn't fail to notice.
