Steve Donoghue’s posts from the original Open Letters Monthly Archives.
The meek and peaceful Jesus has become the standard Christian image of the Messiah. Religious scholar Reza Aslan's controversial new book shatters that image and replaces it with something very different: a violent revolutionary who came not to bring peace but a sword.
Read MoreIn the famous jingle 'divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived,' Katherine Parr comes last - the sixth wife of King Henry VIII. But she was far more than that - scholar, regent, and passionate young woman - as a new Tudor historical novel attempts to portray
Read MoreA debut novel of alternate history spins out one of the most tantalizing hypotheticals of the past: what if Anne Boleyn had managed to give King Henry VIII a healthy male heir? Some of the answers - and some of the resulting mysteries - may surprise you.
Read MoreHe travelled the fledgling United States shooting birds, wiring them into poses, and then painting them for eternity - he was John James Audubon, and his epic "The Birds of America" has a beautiful, gargantuan new edition from Abbeville Press
Read MoreAn ordinary boy in our real world has a funny name - Clark Kent. Funny, that is, until he starts to develop the exact same superpowers as you-know-who
Read MoreVenice has traded flinty commercial acumen and world-weary merchant princes for an ennui worthy of M. John Harrison's science fiction; her profession has now become the art of insubstantiality. For centuries authors have tried and failed to capture her. Steve Donoghue surveys the glorious wreckage.
Read MoreBen Jonson said that the once wealthy and acclaimed Edmund Spenser died "for want of bread"; a new biography tries to disentangle myth from fact, and to make the case for the great poet's relevance today
Read MoreSome of Anthony Burgess' most accomplished inventions roam into the past, to Shakespeare and Marlowe's England and Jesus' Judea. How well has his historical fiction stood up across the years?
Read MoreAs Americans go to the polls this month to elect a president, some recent biographies examine the lives of five very different men who once held the office.
Read MoreTheir brains - their digits - their eyes - their locomotion - their families - their staggeringly long reign over the planet Earth: it's all here, and much, much more. The greatest dinosaur reference work just got even better.
Read MoreHe started an artist on the path to glory, sold a million toys, and inspired a cult classic movie: He's Flash Gordon, and his earliest Sunday adventures are getting a deluxe reprint series.
Read MoreHe fought a world war with France, survived the Black Death, and gave England a real Parliament. Froissart and Chaucer loved him, Shakespeare (almost) wrote about him, and the Victorians disparaged him. He was Edward III, and he has a king-sized new biography from Yale University Press.
Read MoreMaligned as nothing but handsome breeding stock, this German import did more to redefine the role of the monarchy than any subsequent royal, consort or king.
Read MoreThomas Lawrence was the rising young star painter of the politicians, soldiers, rakes, and mistresses of Regency London, but his work had a life and intelligence that transcended the trendy. A new book looks at a forgotten master.
Read MoreFor two centuries, he's been the founding myth of his nation: first in war, first in peace, Washington the paragon. Ron Chernow's new biography does nothing to tarnish that image -- but should it?
Read MoreThe most famous fictional creation this side of Tarzan has undergone innumerable changes over the years, and author Tom DeHaven tries to chart them all in his new book on the Man of Steel.
Read MoreCan Fantagraphics' Spectrum series of contemporary fantasy art yield the same sort of enjoyment as a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Steve Donoghue looks into the newest collection.
Read MoreHe ruled the world of Sunday comics with a singing sword and a grin. He was Prince Valiant, and Fantagraphics lets him fight again. Steve Donoghue goes blow-by-blow.
Read MoreJ.J. Abrams’ long-awaited Star Trek reboot has hit theaters, and Steve Donoghue looks into whether it carries on a proud legacy, or else overturns it.
Read MoreIn The Know-It-All, A.J. Jacobs reduced learning to the memorization of trivia; now in The Year of Living Biblically he reduces religious faith to growing a beard. Steve Donoghue, in turn, reduces A.J. Jacobs.
Read MoreThis is a place for all of my writing about books.