Ultima Thule—the end of the world, the last extremity. The phrase has resonated through history but has remained oddly problematic: just how is Thule pronounced; where is or was it; and what—if anything—was to be found on arrival... Read More

The opening pages of this novel are reminiscent of both Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe series and Lawrence Sanders’s McNally series. Tod, the narrator and son of Bomber Hanson, seems to combine the errand-boy status of Wolfe’s Archie... Read More

Some would say the business of selling is a necessary evil, a distasteful by-product of a materialistic society. Not true, trumpet the authors of this book: “Every single person on earth who is not in the business of selling is... Read More

“Pollen, dust, animals, all these make me sneeze. I am done in by innocent things,” says a father who will never support his family, in the cleverly constructed short story “An Afternoon at the Movies.” His son imagines a film of... Read More

“Della Raye’s only possession was the ragged, filthy dress she wore—made from a discarded feed sack. Hunger had stalked every day of her short life. She had never tasted ice cream, never petted a puppy, never played with a doll.”... Read More

Readers who want adventure, romance, and lyrical story-telling will find it all in this novel. Beginning with the memories evoked by a small volume of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations found in a jacket that hadn’t been worn in forty... Read More

A two-sentence biographical aside in Suetonius—how Julius Caesar, age twenty-five, en route to Rhodes, was abducted by pirates, ransomed and released, then revenged when, still as a private citizen, he confiscated his captors’ bounty... Read More

“Boy, is he delusional.” Many people have probably made a similar remark, but isn’t it all too easy to look at others and diagnose their shortcomings and failures? If only these others would get out of the way life would be a... Read More