Paradise Lost – John Milton, 1667-1674 ★★★★

Eve of Destruction

Literature is a subjective medium, so defining greatness in it is tricky. Time makes this trickier; one generation’s masterpiece might just leave their descendants dazed and confused. Scholars are Beowulf’s main audience now; does anyone still read Pilgrim’s Progress?

Paradise Lost had a time capsule feel not long after its creation. Religiously, John Milton’s Puritan form of Christianity had already fallen out of favor in his homeland by the time of its publication; stylistically, its use of blank verse was even more out-of-step.

Why then, has it mattered as long and as deeply as it does?

The Day Of The Jackal – Frederick Forsyth, 1971 ★★★★★

Making a Tutorial out of a Debut

Genre fiction is easy to take for granted; when you pick up a thriller or a spy novel, you expect a certain kind of experience. It’s not about becoming a better person or learning something; it’s about satisfaction.

But when a novel delivers consistently in just about every facet: suspense, structure, logic, atmosphere, climax; and does so in a way that elevates the form, you need to take a step back and ask: How did he do it?

At least that’s what I do every time I finish reading this masterpiece.

The Years Of Lyndon Johnson: Means Of Ascent – Robert A. Caro, 1990 ★★★½

Snatching the Middle Rung

Means Of Ascent begins as a high-spirited adventure tale of a risk-taking politician gutting through a deadly illness and campaigning from an early-model helicopter. It ends as a whodunit, complete with menacing gunmen and courtroom misdirection ploys.

What connects the two parts is Lyndon Johnson, an 11-year member of the U. S. House of Representatives desperate to be where the action is in American politics – the Senate – and willing to do anything to get there.

See Them Die – Ed McBain, 1960 ★

Death in the Afternoon

That Ed McBain never served up any two 87^th Precinct novels exactly the same way rightly delights many of his fans. Pick one up, and you don’t know what you will get until you are well into it.

So when I read a book of his that annoys me like See Them Die, I have to remind myself that here was a man who took chances, who never stuck to a set formula, who dared throw things up in the air without knowing how they’d land.

It’s just too bad this one wound up such a mess.

Casualties Of War – Daniel Lang, 1969 ★★★★½

Blood Brothers

Truth was called the first casualty of war way back in 1918, but other losses also factor into this real-life account of one U.S. soldier’s experience confronting atrocity and silence during the Vietnam War.

The most immediate and devastating was that of Phan Thi Mao, a young woman raped and murdered by four U. S. soldiers on a recon mission in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in November 1966. Casualties Of War details how killers and bystanders become war’s victims, too.

The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh – Evelyn Waugh, 1998 ★★★

Novelist Keeps it Short

Being a bad guy has its uses. In fiction, Evelyn Waugh dished out cruelty in a way that kept readers both delighted and coming back for more.

No wonder he was so cynical.

The Complete Stories Of Evelyn Waugh collects everything fictional Waugh ever published short of novels. The result is a train wreck of dangerous travels, bad marriages, family insanity, and death which showcases the range of one of the last century’s literary masters.

The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1984 – Bill James, 1984 ★★

The Stabby Side of Sabermetrics

They look and feel like old phone books, but don’t be fooled. Not all vintage Bill James Baseball Abstracts are alike. The sport changed, and so did James, sometimes for the better, sometimes not.

Take The Bill James Baseball Abstract 1984, where evergreen analysis and solid insights regarding the 1983 Major League season are undercut by a snarky, defensive tone. Was success spoiling Mr. James? Or was it not coming fast enough?