Michael McQuillan exhorts Americans to heed Orwell’s prophetic work 1984, and through the poem “Document 14,” Michael draws attention to the breakdown of society as we know it today.
Latest Book Reviews
One Curious Doctor – A Memoir of Medicine, Migration and Mortality
Hilton Koppe opens a window into the inner world of a family practitioner through a focus on the doctor/patient relationship and deep self-reflections on the complexities and mysteries of…
Yellowface
Yellowface by R.F. Kuang breaks open the pitfalls of a publishing industry in today's cultural economy. It is an unsettling read by a masterful storyteller.
Poverty, By America
POVERTY is one subject Matthew Desmond knows intimately. That he has personally experienced what it is like to grow up poor in the richest country in the world, and received a Pulitzer Prize…
On the Level
Mark Wagstaff’s new novel, On the Level, crashes the Jason Bourne films into Catcher in the Rye. Non-stop intrigue drives a coming-of-age story in which protagonist Riz Montgomery is both an…
Document 14
Michael McQuillan exhorts Americans to heed Orwell's prophetic work 1984, and through the poem "Document 14," Michael draws attention to the breakdown of society as we know it today.
Essay
Creativity is the Human Condition
Throughout the majority of humanity’s existence, creativity has been regarded as a mystical enigma. Architect and architecture critic Robert Furneaux Jordan asserted that “to comprehend [creativity] fully would be to be God. We can never comprehend God.” Thanks to this prevailing opinion, it wasn’t until the late 1940s that the study of creativity even started down the path toward…
Liu Xiaobo: Tyranny, Freedom of Conscience, and the Incompleteness of the Individual
After Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, I followed the news about him—this dissident public intellectual who had given the Chinese government a major headache. Having read many books about nonviolent thought and action, I sensed that Liu Xiaobo’s life and writing could deepen my understanding further: He believed that words followed by action could change the direction of a country.
1984 – Has Orwell’s World Arrived?
Recently <em>1984</em> by George Orwell popped into my mind, perhaps because I needed to understand what I was witnessing in the first months of 2017, or at least make an attempt to understand.
Essay
The Writer’s Journey
The Writer’s Journey
Interviews
Longform reviews
Longform reviews
The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine
Ben Ehrenreich, on assignment for Harper’s magazine, went to Palestine’s West Bank in 2011 to report on Israel’s water war with Palestine. The Way to the Spring is based on his eye-witness…
The New Jim Crow
Why has an academic book with a title that includes this mix—“Jim Crow,” “mass incarceration,” and “colorblindness”— resonated with the public? Clearly, Alexander has hit a nerve. Something…
Hip Set
Michael Fertik’s novel Hip Set is not only a thrilling detective story but also a literary inquiry into the sacred and the profane—the secular sandwiched between both. When it comes to human…
God Help the Child
The reality and impact of child abuse rests uneasily, front and center, with the interwoven themes of love and transformation. Meticulously crafted, God Help the Child is a journey of souls…
No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems
Liu Xiaobo is the author of hundreds of essays and seventeen books. Most of the essays in No Enemies, No Hatred are from the period between 2004 and 2008, and reflect, in the service of…