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

Yellowface

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

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…

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.

Essay

The Writer’s Journey

The Writer’s Journey

Interviews

Longform reviews

Longform reviews

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…

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