Pericles, Prince Of Tyre – William Shakespeare (& George Wilkins), 1607-1608 ★★½

Suddenly Shakespeare

Of all the plays ascribed to Shakespeare, none morph more as they go than this rather obscure entry to the Bard’s canon. It carries a misleading title, a baroque and sometimes decadent narrative, and a onetime writing partner who apparently was something of a criminal in later life.

Just who or what is Pericles, Prince Of Tyre, anyway?

To begin with, it is not about the renowned ancient Greek statesman and general. Rather this Pericles is a fictitious character taken from the work of a 14^th century British scribe, John Gower, who himself returns from the dead to narrate this play and explain what is going on:

Who Killed Bob Crane – John Hook, 2017 ★½

A Case Too Cold

The popularity of true crime stories has taken off in the last couple of decades, triggered by the advent of TV documentaries and podcasts. Even casual buffs know famous cases like Zodiac, JonBenet, Springfield Three, Fort Worth Three, and the Texarkana Moonlight Murders.

In all those, and many more, much of the dark appeal comes from not knowing what really happened while pondering a plethora of intriguing clues, blind alleys, red herrings, and the like.

Then there are cases where people pretty much know what happened and who did it, only they can’t prove it. Take the murder of Bob Crane.

Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh, 1945 ★★★★★

Unorthodox Masterpiece

A novel that almost dares readers not to like it, Brideshead Revisited is almost an embarrassed first choice for many seasoned Waugh readers like me. It wallows in privilege and snobbish self-regard, featuring a protagonist who would be called a “stick” in the parlance of its time.

But for all that, this is also Waugh at his most accessible and enjoyable, pulling a Proust but managing to retain his reputation as ace humorist and satirist. After many comic novels, some more successful than others, this was his first story in an unambiguously Catholic vein.

On Liberty – John Stuart Mill, 1859 ★★★½

Pocket Revolution 

Free-thinking used to be a crime but is critical to any healthy civilization. This is one point explicated by English philosopher John Stuart Mill in On Liberty, which also addresses the need for intellectual progress and where our right to do as we please begins and ends.

In five sprawling essays tied together by the theme of liberty but also the objectives and needful limitations of society, Mill lays out one of his most famous cases, for why people should be able to do pretty much whatever they want so long as they hurt no one doing it.

He also has at orthodoxy in many forms, which no doubt disquieted religious readers but clearly impressed a large part of England’s educated classes. On Liberty was a milestone in the development of civil liberties and democratic institutions around the world.

The High Window – Raymond Chandler, 1942 ★★★★

Blood and Class Will Tell

Class isn’t as big a theme in American literature as one might expect, but it crops up often enough. In Raymond Chandler’s The High Window, it comes into play two ways, as income and moral refinement.

Protagonist Philip Marlowe is a very classy guy who relates to what it is to be down-and-out. When he pays a visit to the palatial Pasadena home of Mrs. Murdock, a wealthy widow who marinates in her port-soaked seclusion, he takes it in with the air of a jaded Bolshevik:

“The sidewalk and the parkway were both very wide and in the parkway were three white acacias that were worth seeing. There was a heavy scent of summer on the morning and everything that grew was perfectly still in the breathless air they get over there on what they call a nice cool day.”

John Adams – David McCullough, 2001 ★★★

Looking Out for Number Two

Popular historians need more than get their facts straight; they must entertain while they edify. Few did this better than David McCullough, whose biography on John Adams won him his second Pulitzer Prize. 

Often overlooked for his contributions to the American Revolution and its aftermath, or else depicted as duller or plainer than his fellow Patriots, Adams was due for a reappraisal. But in rebalancing Adams’s legacy as a selfless prime mover of his nation’s birth, did McCullough push too hard in the other direction?

Short answer: Yes. Longer answer: You don’t mind it so much when the case presented – however dubious in several particulars – is this engaging, humorous, and enjoyable to read. Adams at times seems to breathe through these pages.

Asterix And The Big Fight – René Goscinny & Albert Uderzo, 1966 ★★★★

It Takes a Village

Enemy occupation involves more than one type of opponent for those engaged in active resistance. There are the occupiers themselves, and then there are collaborationists, people who accept their new overlords and expect others around them to do the same.

In the case of the unnamed Gaul village which Asterix calls home, the collaborationists are often more trouble than the Romans, never mind history. Back in the day, independent-minded Gauls didn’t have recourse to a magic potion that made them indomitable.

For a long stretch of Asterix And The Big Fight, neither does Asterix. That departure from formula is one big reason this seventh entry in the classic comic series is so much fun.