American Writers (One Hundred Pages at a Time)

We begin a new series looking into the early works of the brilliant Mary McCarthy. In this episode we begin with THE COM... Read more

The first of five episodes covering Philip K. Dick's A SCANNER DARKLY. This novel has some of his most bleak and powerfu... Read more

 Part one of my thoughts on "Moby-Dick" by Herman Melville. We are introduced to the international proletariat.

In this episode, I look at the writings and speeches of Abraham Lincoln from 1859. The most notable document is the "Coo... Read more

The first part of my review of Philip K. Dick's "Ubik". This novel would have been great it if was just about industrial... Read more

This episode examines Lincoln's writings from the aftermath of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to his nomination by the Illinois... Read more

In part 6 of my review of Alexis de Tocqueville's DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA we look at his views on egoism and individualism ... Read more

The conclusion to my thoughts on Philip K. Dick's brilliant novel "Martian Time-Slip".

Philip K. Dick's "VALIS Trilogy" begins with a little novel called VALIS. A fan favorite, but not one I care for very mu... Read more

"Season One" of the H. P. Lovecraft Book Club ends with a look at "The Street." Next, we will explore some of his other ... Read more

In part three of my review of THE CONSPIRACY OF PONTIAC, I talk about Pontiac's plans, the role of cunning and deception... Read more

We get to the end of Herman Melville's prose writing with our look at "Billy Budd", published in 1924. It is a great lit... Read more

Part one of my review of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson. This is an important novel in the history of Ame... Read more

A few of Melville's most famous tales are "Benito Cereno" and "Bartleby the Scrivener". They make up the first half of t... Read more

The best of Philip K. Dick's later novels is THE TRANSMIGRATION OF TIMOTHY ARCHER. It explores the religious culture of ... Read more

More on the French Jesuits in Canada and the Huron mission in this episode of my read-through of Francis Parkman's FRANC... Read more

In Philip K. Dick's final story from the 1960s, "The Electric Ant" we get a mixture of reality bending metaphysics and a... Read more

In part two of my review of OUR FRIENDS FROM FROLIX 8, we get a closer look at the movement culture that emerged to resi... Read more

In part one of my review of OUR FRIENDS FROM FROLIX 8, I examine how meritocracy and posthumanism leads to a pretty inte... Read more

In the finale of my review of A SCANNER DARKLY by Philip K. Dick we see the ultimate fate of Bob Arctor and his friends,... Read more