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The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.

Open Letters Monthly

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June 30, 2017

Moonlight in Vermont

June 30, 2017/ Dorian Stuber

Her remarkable bittersweet memoir reveals Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer as a shrewd anthropologist of wartime America.

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June 30, 2017/ Dorian Stuber/
Arts & Life, Politics & History
biography, July 2017
June 30, 2017

Hunger Pangs

June 30, 2017/ Katie Gemmill

Roxane Gay's new memoir about food, trauma, and her "unruly body" is often as difficult to read as it must have been to write.

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June 30, 2017/ Katie Gemmill/
Fiction, Literary Criticism, Arts & Life
biography, fiction, July 2017, literary criticism
June 30, 2017

The Sooner Disquieted

June 30, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

What compromises did women in Tudor England face? What joys? What prospects, if any, for fulfillment? A sweeping new history cross-sections the issue.

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June 30, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
A Year With The Tudors, Features, Arts & Life, Politics & History
biography, July 2017, Steve Donoghue
May 31, 2017

Change Your Direction

May 31, 2017/ Jerry White

A lively memoir shows there's much more to learning a language than conjugating irregular verbs.

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May 31, 2017/ Jerry White/
Arts & Life
biography, June 2017, philosophy
May 31, 2017

Down the Rabbit Hole

May 31, 2017/ Miriam Elizabeth Burstein

An innovative new book on Lewis Carroll and space avoids spoiling the fun by explaining everything too literally, but still offers new insights on his playful oeuvre.

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May 31, 2017/ Miriam Elizabeth Burstein/
Fiction, Arts & Life
biography, fiction, June 2017, nature
May 23, 2017

Book Review: Paradise Lost

May 23, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

The newest biography of the Jazz Age bard tries to get at the man beneath the high-flying legends.

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May 23, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, f scott fitzgerald, May 2017
May 19, 2017

Book Review: Ernest Hemingway

May 19, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

The epic and tortured life of Ernest Hemingway is told with remarkable insight in a powerful new biography

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May 19, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, ernest hemingway, May 2017
May 18, 2017

Book Review: The Afterlife of John Fitzgerald Kennedy

May 18, 2017/ Steve Donoghue

An intriguing new book charts the long, complicated, and surprisingly vital JFK memory-industry.

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May 18, 2017/ Steve Donoghue/
Arts & Life
biography, May 2017
May 18, 2017

Book Review: Be Like the Fox

May 18, 2017/ Open Letters Monthly

A vivid new biography attempts to get at the true nature of the perennially-misunderstood Machiavelli

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May 18, 2017/ Open Letters Monthly/
Arts & Life
biography, Machiavelli, May 2017
June 30, 2015

American Exceptional

June 30, 2015/ Barrett Hathcock

Adam Begley's long and exhaustive biography of iconic 20th century author John Updike reads like one long string of new books and new love affairs - but does it capture the man?

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June 30, 2015/ Barrett Hathcock/
Arts & Life
Barrett Hathcock, biography, Book Review, July 2015
April 12, 2015

Book Review: James Merrill - Life and Art

April 12, 2015/ Steve Donoghue

The poet James Merrill at long last gets the lavish soup-to-nuts biography he's always deserved

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April 12, 2015/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
April 2015, biography
April 06, 2015

Book Review: Bonaparte, 1769-1802

April 06, 2015/ Steve Donoghue

A gigantic new biography chronicles the rise-to-power of Napoleon Bonaparte

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April 06, 2015/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
April 2015, biography, Napoleon, Steve Donoghue
March 21, 2015

Book Review: Young Eliot

March 21, 2015/ Steve Donoghue

A lavishly-detailed new biography shows us Thomas Stearns Eliot in his slightly fussy, slightly feckless pre-fame years

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March 21, 2015/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, March 2015, T-S- Eliot
February 15, 2015

Book Review: Machiavelli

February 15, 2015/ Steve Donoghue

An engaging new book looks at that perennial fascination for biographers, Niccolo Machiavelli

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February 15, 2015/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, February 2015, italian renaissance, Machiavelli
December 31, 2014

Biography: J

December 31, 2014/ Michael O’Donnell

James Laughlin started a publishing imprint, New Directions, by selling what would become a syllabus of Modern writing from the trunk of his car.

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December 31, 2014/ Michael O’Donnell/
Monthly Cover
biography, January 2015
November 11, 2014

Book Review: America's Pastor

November 11, 2014/ Steve Donoghue

For half a century, preacher Billy Graham was an unofficial spiritual advisor to presidents and rock stars; a new biography attempts to assess his impact on mainstream American religious thought

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November 11, 2014/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, November 2014
November 01, 2014

Book Review: Eugene O'Neill - A Life in Four Acts

November 01, 2014/ Steve Donoghue

A punchy and intensely readable new biography of America's greatest playwright

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November 01, 2014/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, November 2014
October 28, 2014

Book Review: The Marquis

October 28, 2014/ Steve Donoghue

The boyish hero of the American Revolution who became a more problematic and complicated figure in the political upheavals of his native France, the celebrated Marquis de Lafayette gets a sparkling new biography

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October 28, 2014/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, October 2014
October 26, 2014

Book Review: Imprudent King

October 26, 2014/ Steve Donoghue

He ruled an empire on which, it was famously said, the sun never set - and he did all the paperwork himself! It's a new life of King Philip II of Spain

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October 26, 2014/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, October 2014
October 23, 2014

Book Review: Joan of Arc - A Life Transfigured

October 23, 2014/ Steve Donoghue

The mighty Maid who led medieval France's armies to a string of improbable victories before being burned at the stake for witchcraft has been immortalized in song, on stage, on film - and in countless books. A new biography is the latest to tell the tale.

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October 23, 2014/ Steve Donoghue/
Monthly Cover
biography, October 2014
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