Reading Genesis: book review
Marilynne Robinson, Reading Genesis, London: Virago, 2024. Can the writer of this very closely-argued, scholarly study be the same Marilynne Robinson we’ve some to know and, at least in my own case, to profoundly...
Category: history
Book Review: Black Elk Speaks
Rating books is always reductive, unfair: it flattens a full-fledged, 3D experience into a less than a line…just 5 dots! Rating this one is particularly absurd, like passing judgement on the New Testament or...
The Cultural Toolbox: Book Review
Anton Treuer, The Cultural ToolBox: Traditional Ojibwe Living in the Modern World, Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2021 I am not Ojibwe. That is, I’m not one of the readers this book explicitly addresses. Still,...
Tired Clichés and Fine Familiar Phrases
A few weeks ago LinkedIn invited me to contribute to some teaching materials for writers. The subject was avoiding clichés. As usual, I found myself objecting: it’s true that a badly-placed cliché can stop...
Books and Islands: Book Review
I was born and raised in Minnesota, much of which lies in Ojibwe country. For years, however, I assumed that I should study my own heritage, namely German, and so I grew up in...
Tintagel in Late Antiquity
Tintagel in Late Antiquity was a conference, held in Truro, Cornwall, April 21-23. Although I am pretty much an outsider, both to archeology and to Cornwall (a transplanted American!) I’m really glad I went...