Noted Things Here & There
Edward Luttwak, "Homer, Inc.," LRB, 23 February, reviews Stephen Mitchell, trans., The Iliad by Homer.
Jonathan Lopez, "Bed, Bath, and Before," WSJ, 25 February, reviews Lucy Worsley's If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home.
Charles Nicholl, "Death in Florence," LRB, 23 February, explores a 15th century mystery.
Raymond Zhong, "The Emperor of Vanished Kingdoms," WSJ, 25 February, interviews Norman Davies, the author of Vanished Kingdoms: The Rise and Fall of States and Nations. Stephen Marche, "That Time We Beat the Americans," The Walrus, March, sees the War of 1812 as the defining moment for Canada.
John Stauffer, "Outlaws Together," WSJ, 24 February, reviews Sydney Nathans's To Free a Family: The Journey of Mary Walker.
Robert Dorment, "Beautiful, Aesthetic, Erotic," NYRB, 23 February, reviews Fiona MacCarthy's The Last Pre-Raphaelite: Edward Burne-Jones and the Victorian Imagination, Allen Staley's The New Painting of the 1860s: Between the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic Movement , John Christian's Edward Burne-Jones: The Hidden Humorist, "The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement in Britain, 1860–1900," an exhibit at San Francisco's Legion of Honor, and Lynn Federle Orr's and Stephen Calloway's The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement in Britain, 1860–1900. Michael Dirda reviews MacCarthy's Last Pre-Raphaelite for the Washington Post, 24 February.
Lara Feigel reviews Michael Hofmann, trans. & ed., Joseph Roth: A Life in Letters, for the Guardian, 24 February. Caroline Moorhead, "The life of Irène Némirovsky, imagined by her daughter," TLS, 22 February, reviews Élisabeth Gille's The Mirador: Dreamed memories of Irène Némirovsky by her daughter, trans. by Marina Harss.
Michael J. Ybarra, "Help Came Over the Himalayas," WSJ, 25 February, reviews Gregory Crouch's China's Wings: War, Intrigue, Romance, and Adventure in the Middle Kingdom During the Golden Age of Flight.
John Leland, "Literature Comes Out," NYT, 24 February, and Peter Parker for the Washington Post, 24 February, review Christopher Bram's Eminent Outlaws: The Gay Writers Who Changed America.
Steve Fraser, "More Than Greed," Dissent, Winter, reviews Jeff Madrick's Age of Greed: The Triumph of Finance and the Decline of America, 1970 to the Present. Gordon M. Goldstein reviews James G. Hershberg's Marigold: The Lost Chance for Peace in Vietnam for the Washington Post, 24 February. Jack Shafer, "What made Deep Throat leak?" Reuters, 21 February, previews Max Holland's Leak: Why Mark Felt Became Deep Throat.
Jonathan Yardley reviews Raymond Bonner's Anatomy of Injustice: A Murder Case Gone Wrong for the Washington Post, 24 February.