August 2007
Simon & Schuster is calling Michael Behe’s The Edge of Evolution a work of science. Steve Donoghue examines just how blasphemous a claim that is.
Two From FSG
John Cotter leads us to the interior of two extremely different books of poetry, Charles Wright’s reflectively naturalistic Littlefeet and Frederick Seidel’s garish and weird Ooga-Booga.
Peer Review:
Onion Skins and Grass Cuttings
In our regular feature, Joanna Scutts is judge and jury over the reviewers of Günter Grass’s Peeling the Onion, who rather too frequently forgot they were supposed to be considering a book.
To the Outback and Back
David Malouf may have written more thoroughly about Australia than any writer in history. Now that his Complete Stories is out, Sam Sacks assesses the fruit of his thirty-year career.
Doppelganger
A poem by Maggie Smith
Who Are the Smashing Pumpkins?
Adam Golaski reviews Zeitgeist, the newest from the iconic band whose members are always changing and whose bickering and misery is our gain.
Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Defenses
James Fenimore Cooper’s greatness as a novelist has been almost completely lost behind a single, hilarious skewering from Mark Twain. Steve Donoghue reviews a new biography that tries desperately to win back the poor man’s reputation.
One Encounter:
On Reading Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, Translated from the French
Reading a book rendered from Polish to French to English is like playing a game of Telephone. In our regular feature, Andrew Crocker expounds on the
pleasures of translations.
Second Glance:
Dorothy Sayers and the Last Golden Age
Joanna Scutts inaugurates this regular feature by revisiting the groundbreaking mysteries of Dorothy Sayers, who’s ability to wryly delight remains undimmed.
No Mercy for Martin
Ah, that slave-trading John Hawkins, what a dreamy, dashing man! Steve Donoghue reviews Susan Ronald’s The Pirate Queen, an Elizabethan history a trifle more interested in romance than, um, what actually happened.
The Mighty OLM Quiz:
Hail Caesar!
Both August and August’s quiz derive from the Roman emperor who never had a problem with excessive modesty.
“Let’s Swing,” the Cover Photo for August, comes to us from Ugur Can, in Munich, Germany. Ugur’s work can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/uccrow and www.uccrow.com
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