Overview for Book Reviews

The Big Sort

My column for this weekend's National Post discusses the two most important books on US politics I read this year, Andrew Gelman's Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State and Bill Bishop's The Big Sort. Good news: If you havenÕt already read any of the half-dozen books published about …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Riddle of the Sands

The Riddle of the Sands is often described as the first spy novel in English. It certainly gives Kim a run for hte money. And much more than Kim [see my review here ] it does seem to have gathered in one place the essential elements of the genre. (The elements are bolded below.) Our …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Nudge

Cass Sunstein's and Richard Thaler's Nudge has deservedly won praise as one of the most important public policy books of the year. Nudge builds on insights from the new school of behavioral economics, of which Richard Thaler is a leading light. Thaler and others in the school have …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Spies of Warsaw

There's not much to say about Alan Furst's The Spies of Warsaw . It is not the author's best work, and even contains a rare solecism: one of the characters is described as having served as "ambassador to Singapore," obviously an impossibility in 1937. Still, for those who love Furst's …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Far From the Madding Crowd

Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd takes its title from a stanza of Thomas Gray’s “Elegy in a Country Churchyard”: Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray; Along the cool sequester'd vale of life They kept the …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Intellectuals and the Flag

After the 9/11 terror attacks, the academic and writer Todd Gitlin bought an American flag and hung it from his terrace. Oh you say: So did you? So did millions of people? Yes they did. But Gitlin is a well-known left-wing writer and academic, whose record of fierce protest dates back beyond …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

London 1945

I'd had Maureen Waller's em> London 1945

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The New Case Against Immigration

What a pleasure it is when a friend writes a thoroughly excellent book! Mark Krikorian's em> The New Case Against Immigration

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Nero

It should be made clear from the start that Edward Champlin's Nero is not a biography in the usual sense of the term. Champlin, professor of classics at Princeton, has devoted his life to teasing meaning from obscure fragments of the Latin world. (I see from his bibliography that one of …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Rome and Jerusalem: The Clash of Ancient Civilizat

At the Passover seder, a young child traditionally asks four questions about the mysterious goings-on: why do we eat bitter herbs dipped in salt water, why do we eat reclining, and so on. The questions introduce the Passover narrative, the story of the exodus from Egypt. For the historicall…

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Mill on the Floss

I ended up listening to The Mill on the Floss twice through, and for that I blame the fact that I have been doing more running and less stair-climbing recently. When I run, I usually prefer to listen to music rather than books. Result : whereas normally I listen to a book in big chunks of …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Romola

Almost nobody has a good word to say for Romola , George Eliot's fourth full-length novel: a historical romance set in 15th century Florence. I admire Eliot so much that I ignored all warnings, downloaded the enormous thing from Audible.com, and took notes with a view to defying the …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past

I read Bruce Bartlett's Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past in typescript some months ago. I was tempted to blog about it then, but out of authorial comity decided to wait until the published version was available for everyone to read. I've been chomping at the bit ever since. …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Last Mughal

In The Last Mughal , William Dalrymple evokes a lost world: old Delhi before the Indian Mutiny and the ensuing destruction of much of the venerable capital of the Mughals. Dalrymple's depiction of the city is unabashedly nostalgic. We hear the plash of fountains in courtyards, the chant of Urdu …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

The Death of the Grown-Up

In The Death of the Grown-Up , Washington Times columnist Diana West has produced an ambitious, sophisticated, and closely argued case that the ills of American culture can be traced to a society-wide revulsion from the obligations and responsibilities of adulthood. The thesis has been heard …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009

In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconcei

Theodore Dalrymple is the pseudonym of Anthony Daniels, a British prison psychatrist well known I think to NRO readers for his dark, intimate views of the bottom of British society. His short new book, part of the "Brief Encounters" series generalizes from his observations into what can only be …

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Written by David Frum on Thursday February 19, 2009