The Nightstand

In sum, Finding a New Midwestern History is an exemplary compilation of historical interpretations both renewed and new. The enthusiasms of Garland, Wright, and Turner—registered a century and a quarter ago—have found compelling new voices, testifying to the Midwest’s remarkable past, and present.

The summer, its heat and its flowers, has finally been put to death. But the dust remains. George Wilson is covered in it, alive and dead, and as Nick told us at the beginning of the novel, the empty space around Gatsby’s dream is made up of that same dust, those same ashes.

The poetry in this book captures some of those everyday moments and holds them up in a light that makes possible another kind of clarity, not that of simply worded declarations on a page, but that which concerns our own selves and souls.

James Howard Kunstler follows the first commandment handed down to all of us at birth: “Thou shalt not be dull.”

A short review cannot do justice to the range of reasons visitors to the Porch should read Kingsnorth’s three novels, so I’ll begin simply by saying: Read them. These are thought-provoking, challenging, and linguistically creative novels.

Not only did the worst consequences of lockdowns occur in the Global South, but lockdowns were pushed on the South from the North, through well-known strongarm tactics of neocolonialism that have consistently pushed neoliberalism, austerity, and impoverishment on the South for the last several decades.

Recently FPR's Bar Jester sat down with the Culinary Plagiarist to discuss a new book by Jason Peters, The Culinary Plagiarist: (Mis)Adventures of a Lusty, Thieving, God-Fearing Gourmand.

Turmoil is present throughout Dick’s world, and this is clearly reflected in each of the three characters discussed here. Tagomi, Wegner, and Childan’s lives are greatly influenced by events precipitated by others, and each responds in a different manner.

I have no doubt this collection would delight Bailey, dandelions and all. Selecting and anthologizing the work of a writer-scholar as prolific as this is a labor of love as much as caretaking, stewarding, gardening, weeding, and pruning.

Aaron Weinacht’s book is a needed corrective to the public misperception of Ayn Rand as radical capitalist. She was, first and foremost, a radical nihilist. Insofar as Rand embraced capitalism, it was secondary to her axiomatic nihilism embodied best in John Galt.