Book Reviews
‘Muscle Man’ novel comments on men and weightlifting
In the years since the pandemic, weightlifting has frequently been associated with right-wing and even neofascist politics. In the media, guys—and it's always guys—who lift are regularly portrayed as authoritarian thugs,…
‘A Cartoonist’s Life’ biography documents Robert Crumb’s career
Crumb: A Cartoonist's Life, by Dan Nadel, Scribner, 480 pages, $35 "In the spring of 1962, an 18-year-old Robert Crumb was beaned in the forehead by a solid glass ashtray. His mother, Bea, had hurled it at his…
‘Project Mind Control’ book documents MKUltra project
Project Mind Control tells the lurid tale of the CIA's attempts to discover the scientific principles that would allow people to control subjects' thoughts and actions. The author, University of Texas historian John…
‘Progressive Myths’ Rebuts the Left’s Histrionic Takes
Michael Huemer's new book Progressive Myths aims to inoculate readers against what the author calls the "progressive mind virus": an infection, he writes, that "deactivates one's truth-seeking…
‘Tradecraft’ book chronicles John le Carré’s career
John le Carré's characters were the opposite of James Bond. Like Bond creator Ian Fleming, le Carré was a veteran British intelligence officer who wrote spy novels. But unlike Fleming's action hero, le Carré's…
New biography presents FDR as one of America’s greatest political scoundrels
FDR: A New Political Life, by David T. Beito, Open Universe, 400 pages, $29.99 If there were any doubts that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was one of the greatest scoundrels of American political history, David…
Frank S. Meyer and the history of fusionism
With The Man Who Invented Conservatism: The Unlikely Life of Frank S. Meyer, Daniel J. Flynn has produced a biography valuable to both political novices and serious students of the conservative movement. Laymen will gain from…
Jerry Garcia biography explores counterculture history
Former Los Angeles Times man Jim Newton, in his book Here Beside the Rising Tide, picked a representative subject through which to judge the achievements and excesses of the 1960s counterculture: Grateful Dead guitarist and…
New Carole King biography is the first dedicated solely to the music legend
The Shirelles, an all-black girl group out of New Jersey, had just cracked the Top 40 in September 1960 and needed a follow-up hit. Don Kirshner, impresario of a songwriting factory in Manhattan's Brill Building, gave…
‘Without Consent’ recounts Greta Rideout’s landmark spousal rape trial
Without Consent: A Landmark Trial and the Decades-Long Struggle To Make Spousal Rape a Crime, by Sarah Weinman, Ecco, 320 pages, $32 A woman shows up at the police station and says she would like to press charges for rape.…
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