Things Noted Here & There

Leanda de Lisle,"Courting Disaster," Literary Review, November, reviews Giles Tremlett's Catherine of Aragon: Henry's Spanish Queen and Katie Whitaker's A Royal Passion: The Turbulent Marriage of Charles I & Henrietta Maria.

Giles Milton,"Rise and Fall," Literary Review, November, reviews Philip Mansel's Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean, which concentrates on Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut.

Saul David,"Lyons' Share," Literary Review, November, reviews Amanda Foreman's A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided, which treats Britain's role in the American Civil War.

Nathaniel Philbrick,"Sailing Alone," NYT, 29 October, reviews Geoffrey Wolff's The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum.

Teller,"More than Magic," Vanity Fair, December, makes the case for the importance of Harry Houdini.

Norman Stone,"The Führer in the Making," WSJ, 30 October, reviews Thomas Weber's Hitler's First War.

Deborah Solomon,"Gothic American," NYT, 28 October, reviews R. Trip Evans's Grant Wood: A Life.

Peter Mandler,"Binary Pere," Literary Review, November, reviews Patrick Wilcken's Claude Lévi-Strauss: The Poet in the Laboratory.