Bandersnatch: C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and the Creative Collaboration of the Inklings is reviewed on the Books of Titans podcast.

“There is great romance in the idea of this group of friends meeting and discussing their work. The camaraderie and creative impetus of the Inklings must have been one of the greatest experiences […]

Ever wonder what makes a femme fatale? Find that out and more in Crime Reads’ extended excerpt from The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial by Laura James.
“Classical literature is filled with infectious damsels and dead heroes. ‘The betrayal of a king or hero by his mistress is, in short, a story both old and popular,’ […]

Cecily Zander reviews Paul Taylor’s “The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known”: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War on H-Net.org
“Joining the growing tide of literature concerned with understanding nationalism in the Civil War-era North, Paul Taylor’s The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War offers a detailed analysis […]

Laura James speaks about her informative new book The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial.
“Laura James makes the case that more than 30 women got away with murder because of their looks in her new true crime book ‘The Beauty Defense.’
‘The better looking a woman is, the more likely she is to walk,’ James said. ‘I collected […]

Take some time out to read this excellent review of The Faun’s bookshelf: C.S. Lewis on Why Myth Matters by Charlie W. Starr.
“Readers who have wandered through the wardrobe into Narnia with Lucy, sailed to the World’s End with Caspian, and rocketed to prelapsarian worlds with Ransom will relish Charlie W. Starr’s meticulous and creative study […]

“Using her extensive research into the still-extant records of the Society, and the memoirs of society members, Kathleen Fernandez has been able to build up a detailed picture of life in Zoar, and she gives us a vivid picture of the community, using their own words and records.”
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EXCITING NEWS!
Deborah Fleming’s stellar book of essays, Resurrection of the Wild: Meditations on Ohio’s Natural Landscape, has been selected as a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay! This year’s judges—Jelani Cobb, Daniel Menaker, and Judith Thurman!
Congratulations to Deborah and all the honorees!!

From H-CivWar, don’t miss this insightful interview with James Brookes regarding his Civil War History article “‘The Last and Most Precious Memento’: Photographic Portraiture and the Union Citizen-Soldier” (CWH September 2019, Volume 65, No. 3).
I argue that portrait photographs were significant vessels of personal identity during the Civil War. Much like letters, they were used by soldiers and civilians as […]

Check out this great review of Giesberg and Miller’s Women and the American Civil War: North-South Counterpoints at Reviews in History. 
“The editors and the assembled authors upend previous understandings of Civil War era women ‘as heroes, angels, or martyrs’. Rather, they seek to ‘uncover the complex women’s self-emancipation, healing, and commemorative work’ while simultaneously making ‘room for women whose wartime actions […]

Lincoln Mitchell, the author of Baseball Goes West, chats with podcast host Tim Hanlon on Good Seats Still Available.
he dramatic departure and bold reinvention of the Dodgers (to Los Angeles) and the Giants (to San Francisco) is the stuff of not only professional baseball lore, but also broader American culture – brash and (especially among generations […]