Notes Ancient and Modern

Steve Coates,"‘My Poetry Is Filthy — but Not I'," NYT, 12 December, reviews Martial's Epigrams: A Selection, translated and with an introduction by Garry Wills.

Lorraine Adams,"Thinly Veiled," NYT, 12 December, reviews Sherry Jones's The Jewel of Medina, a work of historical fiction.

Blake Gopnik,"Ascending Anew," Washington Post, 14 December, features the Correggio retrospective that is currently exhibited across Parma, Italy.

Blake Bailey,"A Modern Victorian," NYT, 12 December, reviews Paul Mariani's Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life.

Patrick Keeney,"Decline, fall and then some," National Post, 6 December, reviews Theodore Dalrymple's Not with a Bang But with a Whimper: The Politics and Culture of Decline.

James Glanz and T. Christian Miller,"Report Spotlights Iraq Rebuilding Blunders," NYT, 13 December, summarizes a massive report,"Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Experience," on the $117 billion spent in failed reconstruction projects.

Where is the Frederick Lewis Allen who will write ourOnly Yesterday? How could you make up Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin, Rod Blagojevich, Marc Dreier, Bernie Madoff?