David Frum

06.02.25

Rome and Jerusalem

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.

06.02.25

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.

06.02.25

Britain's Lost Cities

If you travel much outside London, you cannot accept seeing that Britain’s secondary cities have been pulverized into some of the ugliest in Europe.

06.02.25

Felix Holt, The Radical

Felix Holt, The Radical ranks alongside Romola as George Eliot’s least-read novel. I’m happy this time to report that Eliot’s fourth full-length novel abundantly deserves and repays reading.

06.02.25

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.

06.02.25

Swimming in a Sea of Death

David Rieff has reported from almost every strange, dusty, and violent corner of the globe. Cruelty, violence, and death have been his great subjects.

06.02.25

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.

06.02.25

London 1945

I’d had Maureen Waller’s London 1945 on my “to be read” shelf for many months. A recent trip to London prodded me to take it up at last.

06.02.25

The Concrete Dragon

In his new book arguing the case for America’s coming decline as a world power, Fareed Zakaria makes much of the fact that many of the world’s most grandiose pieces of Americana are no longer located in the United States.

06.02.25

Silas Marner

Silas Marner is George Eliot’s third full-length novel. Like its predecessors, it is set in the fields and villages of the English Midlands in the days before the Industrial Revolution.