Books Without Borders: Recent Reviews

Updated January 7, 2021.

Since 2014, I have composed a number of reviews for book editor Tony Norman at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Here is a running list of the links (all have been for the P-G, unless otherwise noted):

August 28, 2022:
Kevin G. Bethune: Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation (The MIT Press, $24.95). Business, culture.

January 5, 2021:
Madelyn Roehrig, Andy, Can You Hear Us? Volume 1 (Winter), (Andy’s Figments LLC, $39.95 direct from the publisher; $49.95 elsewhere). Art History, Local (Pittsburgh) History, Culture and Society.

August 2, 2020:
Ronald F. Levant and Shana Pryor, The Tough Standard: The Hard Truths About Masculinity and Violence (Oxford University Press, $27.95). Masculinity; Society; Feminism.

Friday, May 22, 2020 (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Weekend Magazine):
Ben Katchor, The Dairy Restaurant (Nextbook/Schocken, $29.95). Cultural History; Judaica; Graphic Novel.

February 16, 2020:
Patrick Michael Lynch, The Know-It-All Society: Truth and Arrogance in Political Culture (Liveright / W.W. Norton & Company, $26.95). Counterculture; Politics; History and Society.

November 1, 2019 (online); November 3 (print):
Curtis White, Living in a World that Can’t Be Fixed: Reimagining the Counterculture Today (Melville House/Penguin Random House, $24.99). Counterculture; Politics; History and Society.

August 17, 2019:
Anthony Kronman, The Assault on American Excellence (New York: Free Press/Simon & Schuster, $27.00). Education; Culture and Society; Politics.

March 31, 2019:
Dreyer's English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer (New York: Random House, 2019). Language, Culture and Society, Writing.

December 2018 [for the Journal of Urban Affairs]:
Building the Modern World: Albert Kahn in Detroit by Michael C. Hodges, (Detroit, A Painted Turtle Book / Wayne State University Press, 2018). History; Local  History (Detroit); Culture and Society; Art and Architecture.

September 8, 2018:
The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt (academia, society).

July 25, 2018: (Accepted for publication June 29, 2016, but never published - now on my blog)
An Abbreviated Life by Ariel Leve. Literary memoir.

June 4, 2017:
Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus by Laura Kipnis. Academia; Culture and Society; Feminism.

April 23, 2017:
Free Women, Free Men: Sex, Gender, Feminism by Camille Paglia. Feminism; Culture and Society.

August 7, 2016:
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger. Masculinity; Culture and Society.

July 10, 2016:
The Haters by Jesse Andrews. Young Adult Fiction; Music.

March 6, 2016:
Spectacle of Skill: Selected Writings of Robert Hughes. Art History; Criticism; Memoir.

September 20, 2015:
Building Art: The Life and Work of Frank Gehry by Paul Goldberger. Architecture; Biography.

December 27, 2014:
Lowriders in Space, Book 1 by Cathy Camper and Raúl the Third. Culture and Socity; Hispanic-American Culture; Graphic Novel.

December 14, 2014:
Second Avenue Caper: When Goodfellas, Divas, and Dealers Plotted Against the Plague by Joyce Brabner and Mark Zingarelli. Graphic Novel.

September 7, 2014:
Masterful Marks: Cartoonists Who Changed the World edited by Monte Beauchamp. Graphic Novel; Biography; Cartooning.
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"Wow! More books than I even remember assigning. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Don Simpson. I guess you've become one of the PG's 'intellectual history' reviewers by default. We should kick you a beach book or two to bring the intensity level down a bit." -- Tony Norman, Book Editor and Columnist, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, on Facebook, July 18, 2019.

I sure hope not! It's an education and an honor, and I'm very grateful.
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Read my YA prose novel, The Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series! New chapter every Friday.