The Why of the Beholder
/Can Fantagraphics' Spectrum series of contemporary fantasy art yield the same sort of enjoyment as a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art? Steve Donoghue looks into the newest collection.
Read MoreThe Better Part of Me: Ovid
/When he was banished for life from Rome, Ovid was trying to alter his artistic forms with his Metamorphoses. Trace the transformations in Steve Donoghue’s final “Year with the Romans”
Read MoreJohn D'Agata continues his exploration of the essay with a big new anthology. Steve Donoghue reviews The Lost Origins of the Essay.
Read MoreJohn Freeman writes a heartfelt manifesto against email and Steve Donoghue reviews it
Read MoreDavid Slavitt produces a new translation of Ariosto Furioso. Steve Donoghue reviews.
Read MoreHilary Mantel’s Tudor novel Wolf Hall recently won the Man-Booker Prize. Each part of that sentence was guaranteed to attract Steve Donoghue’s attention.
Read MoreHorace in the Afternoon
/He was everybody’s friend, and his poetry breathes with life even today. He was Horace, and “A Year with the Romans” makes his acquaintance.
Read More#10
/In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.
Read MoreThe Grace of Seduction
/Steve Donoghue’s “A Year with the Romans” continues with a look at the obscure Roman poet Persius – and the great new book about him.
Read MorePrince of a Lost Realm
/He ruled the world of Sunday comics with a singing sword and a grin. He was Prince Valiant, and Fantagraphics lets him fight again. Steve Donoghue goes blow-by-blow.
Read MoreVerissimus
/Statesmen, philosophers, and serial killers turn to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but what was the emperor himself like? Frank McLynn’s Marcus Aurelius tells, and in this month’s “A Year with the Romans,” Steve Donoghue assesses.
Read MoreBook Review: How I Became a Famous Novelist
/Steve Hely's How I Became a Famous Novelist tells the tale of a writer/'content manager'. Steve Donoghue reviews.
Read MoreChurch and State collided in Henry VIII’s England, and Durham Cathedral was caught in the middle. Steve Donoghue returns to his Tudor beat to review Geoffrey Moorhouse’s The Last Divine Office.
Read MoreAlexander the Grating
/The only surviving full-length biography of Alexander the Great was written by a Roman. Steve Donoghue looks at Quintus Curtius Rufus as “A Year with the Romans” continues.
Read MoreMiss Hamilton Disposes
/No one had ever written about love - in its infinite and profane variety - the way the Roman poet Catullus did; its explication by a scholarly schoolmistress might seem paradoxical - but Edith Hamilton knew something about love herself.
Read MoreReview of Heros & Villians: Inside the Minds of the Greatest Warriors in History
/Steve Donoghue explores why eminent historian Frank McLynn's "Heroes & Villains is easily the most frustrating book he’s ever written."
Read MoreReview of BoneMan's Daughters
/In his review of BoneMan's Daughters, Steve Donoghue takes Ted Dekker to task, writing, "the experience is constantly given an extra-gummy sheen by carrying a freight of Biblical and quasi-Biblical double meanings."
Read MoreReview of Before I Lose My Style
/Steve Donoghue reviews the structurally bold gay novel "Before I Lose My Style".
Read MoreReview of The Great Perhaps
/Steve Donoghue review "The Great Perhaps," "Joe Meno’s best book to date by several orders of magnitude."
Read MoreReview of Meriwether Lewis
/Find out more about Danisi and Jackson's biography of Meriwether Lewis by reading Steve Donoghue's informing review: "but we know what kind of a book Danisi and Jackson have written: meaty, entertaining, and best of all, definitive."
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