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Featured Reviews

One Day—and One Night—in Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen (essay) (2000) - Anthony Bourdain  (Grade:B+)
The Ugliest Pilgrim (story) (1969) - Doris Betts  (Grade:B+)
Murder! (story) (1927) - Arnold Bennett  (Grade:A+)
Grizzly Central (Essay) (2011) - John Gierach  (Grade:A+)
Liberalism as a Way of Life (2024) - Alexander Lefebvre  (Grade:B)
The American Credo: A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind (1920) - H. L. Mencken - George Jean Nathan  (Grade:B+)
A Meeting in Middle-Age (1964) - William Trevor  (Grade:A+)
The Sporting Genius of the English-Speaking Peoples (essay) (2022) - Rachel Lu  (Grade:A+)
Baiting the Ump (essay) (1910) - George Jean Nathan  (Grade:B)
Bernice Bobs Her Hair (story) (1920) - F. Scott Fitzgerald  (Grade:B+)
The Work of Evil (story) (1963) - William Croft Dickinson  (Grade:B)
Evo Havel (story) (2020) - Brian Evenson  (Grade:A+)
America’s Philosopher: John Locke in American Intellectual Life (2022) - Claire Rydell Arcenas  (Grade:A)
Hillbilly Elegy (2016) - J. D. Vance  (Grade:B)
The Shining (1977) - Stephen King  (Grade:C-)
The Black Spider [Die schwarze Spinne] (1842) - Jeremias Gotthelf  (Grade:A)
The Universal Baseball Association, Inc. : J. Henry Waugh, Prop. () - Robert Coover  (Grade:A-)
MOVIE REVIEWS:


Gladiator (2000) - Ridley Scott  (Grade:A)
Nochnoy Dozor [Night Watch] (2003) - Timur Bekmambetov  (Grade:A)

Brothers Judd Daily


Brothers Judd QuasiDaily Bookmarks:
Compass marker 10/31/24:


On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther set off the Protestant Reformation when he posted his 95 theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace.


Katherine Womeldorf Paterson (1932-) was born in Qing Jiang, Jiangsu, China on October 31, 1932. Read Orrin's review of Bridge to Terabithia (1977)


Don Winslow (1953-) was born in New York, NY on October 31, 1953. Read Orrin's review of A Cool Breeze on the Underground (1991)


John Adams (1735-1826) was born in Braintree, MA on October 30, 1735. In one of life's more delightful ironies, he and his friend and rival Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4th, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration which they cowrote.


Ezra Loomis Pound (1885-1972) was born in Hailey, ID on October 30, 1885.


Henry Green (Henry Vincent Yorke)(1905-73) was born in Tewkesbury, England on October 29, 1905. Read Orrin's review of Loving (1945)


James Boswell (1740-95) was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on October 29, 1740. His Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) essentially created the modern biography.


Evelyn Waugh (1903-66) was born on in London, England on October 28, 1903. Read Orrin's reviews of A Handful of Dust (1934)(Grade: B) Scoop (1937)(Grade: B+), Brideshead Revisited (1945)(Grade: C) and The Loved One (1948) (Grade: A)


Dylan Thomas (1914-53) was born in Swansea, Wales on October 27, 1914. He is best remembered for his poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night and A Child's Christmas in Wales (1955) (Grade: A)


Sylvia Plath (1932-63) was born in Boston, MA on October 27, 1932. Brothers Judd recommends her book The Bell Jar (1963), bad reviews for which were supposedly the proximate cause of her decision to kill herself.


Francis Fukuyama (1952-) was born in Chicago, IL on October 27, 1952. Read Orrin's review ofThe End of History and the Last Man (1992) (Grade: A+)


Pat Conroy, born in Atlanta on October 26, 1945


Beryl Markham (1902-1986) was born in Melton Mowbray, England on October 26, 1902. Read Orrin's review of her extraordinary memoirWest With the Night (1941) (Grade: A+)


Anne Tyler (1941-) was born in Minneapolis on October 25, 1941. Read Orrin's review of Breathing Lessons (1988)(Grade: C)


Al Jolson (Asa Yoelson)(1888-1950) was born in Russia on October 23, 1888. Brothers Judd recommends the movie The Jolson Story (1946) and the album On Broadway


Doris Lessing (1919-) was born in Iran on October 22, 1919. Read Orrin's review of The Golden Notebook (1962)(Grade: F).


Benjamin Netanyahu (1949 - ). Born in Tel Aviv on October 21, 1949. Read Orrin's review of Fighting Terrorism : How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists.


Ursula K. LeGuin (1929-) was born in Berkeley, CA on October 21, 1929. Read Orrin's review of The Lathe of Heaven (1971)(Grade: A)


Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) was born in Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire, England on October 21, 1722. Check out an online version of his Lyrical Ballads (1798)


John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie (1917-93) was born in Cheraw, S.C. on October 21, 1917. Glenn Dryfoos recommends Sonny Side Up (great bop, featuring the 2 tenor titans, Sonny Rollins and Sonny Stitt); Things to Come (showing off Dizzy's great Big Band); Jazz at Massey Hall (with Charlie Parker, Max Roach, Charles Mingus and Bud Powell...the greatest collection of bebop talent ever on one stage)




Reader comments and suggestions are welcome after each review, or send email to Orrin.

The Brothers Judd - The Adventure of Great Literature



If two New Hampshire men aren't a match for the Devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians.
-Stephen Vincent Benet (1898-1943), The Devil and Daniel Webster