Book Review: The Midwife's Tale
/A formidable York midwife must use all her skill and human insight to save the life of a friend accused of murder
Read MoreBook Review: World War Two
/The military crucible of the 20th Century gets a new hardcover history that can be read in one hour and fifteen minutes.
Read MoreBook Review: Ice Forged
/The first volume in a new fantasy series opens on a world where the everyday background magic on which everybody depends is beginning to flicker out ...
Read MoreLetters and Journals of a Diplomat!
/Our book today is Larz Anderson: Letters and Journals of a Diplomat, a pleasingly plump 1940 volume assembled three years after Larz’ death by his wife Isabel, whom we’ve already met here at Stevereads: she was the author of (among many other books) the delightful memoir Presidents and Pies. Her husband Larz spent his whole [...]
Read MoreClassics Reissued: Alexander of Macedon
/One of the best - and certainly the most contentious - biographies of Alexander the Great gets an attractive new reprint.
Read MorePenguins on Parade: The Ecologues of Virgil!
/Some Penguin Classics aim for the unreachable, bless their hearts, and a good case-in-point is Guy Lee’s edition of Virgil’s Ecologues, which was brought out in the Penguin Classics line in 1984. Lee opens his Introduction by promptly admitting that the 20th Century had seen no shortage of English translations of Virgil’s career-making debut verse [...]
Read MoreBook Review: The Kassa Gambit
/In the future setting of this promising sci-fi debut, world-hopping humanity finds the last thing it expected: aliens!
Read MoreFrom the BPL: The Time of the Wolf!
/In 2012 more than in any previous year, I found myself playing catch up at my beloved Boston Public Library, the best public library in the world. Some of you will already know of my affection for the sumptuous solidity of the McKim building – and especially for the soaring beauty of Bates Hall, under [...]
Read MoreEncyclopedia Brown!
/Our book today is Donald Sobol’s 1963 classic Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, which introduced Sobol’s immortal character, 10-year-old super-sleuth Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown, to legions of young people who until they read the book had no idea they liked reading at all – and then found they loved it. Our diminutive hero – “a complete library [...]
Read MoreNew in Paperback: The Last Son of Krypton
/The revered (and reviled) Superman director Richard Donner co-writes an epic story from the Man of Steel's past
Read MoreEntred in a Spacious Court
/Ben 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
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