Not so unusual to have a madman close to running our country considering America was founded upon the abuse of alcohol. Susan Cheever’s slight but pleasing “Drinking in America” clarifies our major malfunction, beginning with the Mayflower’s decision to put in at Plymouth only because they’d run out of beer. Those Revolutionary War stories […]

After word of mouth drove me to the killer first of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, frustration with a library waiting list longer than a movie theater concession line necessitated my cash forkover for the next three (shout out to the Mysterious Bookshop, NYC). To say they didn’t disappoint understates overstatements. Sadly, a fifth volume is […]