A collection of longer book reviews, essays that go further into the text than a typical Amazon review.
Is the Paleo Diet a cult?
Maugham’s travels around China in 1919 are here related in sketch form, varying wildly in quality from the transcendent to the execrable.
Amy Tan’s “Two Kinds”
On Jeremy Scahill’s “Dirty Wars”, and battling against a personal history of ignorance
Grab your iron key and let’s go back to Lev Grossman’s magic school.
A defense of Classical music in the 21st Century, and a review of Richard Powers new novel “Orfeo”.
Existentialism inverted in Melville’s “Bartleby The Scrivener”
First novels can be an enlightening experience for writers and readers alike, but some are more successful than others.
A daytrip to a mining city in Polish Silesia, photography with the Olympus XZ-2 camera, and a look at Roberto Bolaño’s ‘By Night in Chile.’
From the SeanMMadden.com archives (20 Jun ‘13)
Highlights from “Dozakhnama”
Who says genre doesn’t have a place in literature?
A new Afghan War memoir gives a Danish perspective on combat and nation building
Spark’s early novella is a mystic, comic masterpiece that may or may not feature the Devil.
Comedian Mark Thomas does an incredible job of uncovering the evils of the arms trade.
Why ‘Vision in Spring’ is the worst and most revealing work Faulkner ever wrote; and why it still matters
On reading “The Strange Case of Billy Biswas”
Originally published as the separate volumes ‘Desert Divers’ and ‘Exterminate all the Brutes’, Lindqvist’s writing is an essential element…
Dawkins makes a successful return to popular science, though he attracts as much criticism for his work as you might expect from a sequel…
An otherwise interesting tour through the origins of some English words and expressions is spoilt by a lack of editorial attention.
Golding was an amazing writer whose talents stretch much further than just ‘The Lord of the Flies’
Dick’s great pulp novel of Martian settlement deserves a second look, despite its rough edges.
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