It goes without saying that a man dubbed “the father of modern conservatism” might stir up contentious debates. In his heyday, Edmund Burke was so renowned as a thinker that his detractors tried to place him at the center of conspiracy theories. In a new biography, Jesse Norman tackles Burke’s thought in its entirety — a task which, in Charles Hill’s view, is nothing if not un-Burkean.
Counter-revolutionary
Cerebral Los Angelenos
Who says L.A. can’t be bookish? (Ok, I say that a lot.) But here to prove me (and you) wrong is next week’s calendar events for cerebral Los Angelenos. On the “books?”: Amiri Baraka, Joan Didion, and Jonathan Lethem, just to name a few.
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A Disturbance in the Force of the Joyce Estate
Our own Mark O’Connell likens James Joyce’s grandson to a “highbrow Darth Vader.”
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A New Adaptation of 1984
This week in book-to-film adaptation news: a new version of 1984 is in the works, with Paul Greengrass signed on to direct and a screenplay by James Graham.
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Necessary Nabokov
Christopher Michel discusses The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov – a book that challenges the long-held consensus that Nabokov was merely an aesthete.
What Kind
At Boston Review, check out a new poem from Maggie Nelson. At The Millions, Leslie Jamison includes Nelson’s Bluets and The Art of Cruelty in A Year in Reading.