Friday Notes

Robert Gottlieb,"The Drama of Sara Bernhardt," NYRB, 10 May, scans the literature about"the most famous actress the world has ever known."

William Grimes,"In Churchill's Rise to Power, a Rough Path to Rebellion," NY Times, 10 March, reviews Lynne Olson's Troublesome Young Men: The Rebels Who Brought Churchill to Power and Helped Save England.

Theodore Dalrymple,"A Drinker of Infinity," City Journal, March, revisits the life and work of Arthur Koestler. Hearing him lecture at Duke is one of the fond memories of my undergraduate years. Koestler said that he'd come to the University to find out about the work of J. B. Rhyne, whose experiments in parapsychology were considered something of an embarrassment. He berated us because no one in the room admitted to knowing anything about Rhyne. It was an awkward moment.