From CT, a review of Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America by Matthew Avery Sutton; and a review essay on the art of biblical interpretation. A look at how Second Life affects real life. Taking your own life is a mortal sin, says the Catholic Church — unless you happen to be a bishop. Making a dictionary of Wapisiana – an indigenous language spoken in South America – was time-consuming, but not as dull as Samuel Johnson declared. From Literary Review, Michael Burleigh reviews The Return of History and the End of Dreams by Robert Kagan; a review of For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond by Ben Macintyre; and a review of The 60s Unplugged: A Kaleidoscopic History of a Disorderly Decade by Gerard DeGroot. A review of Why Truth Matters by Ophelia Benson and Jeremy Stangroom. From City Journal, Saul Bellow’s prophetic 1970 novel Mr. Sammler’s Planet captured New York’s unraveling and remains a cautionary tale. Why do New Yorkers seem rude? Joan Acocella has a few ideas. Resurrecting Leslie Fiedler, a high priest of pop culture: The legacy of the literature critic is born again in a new collection of his essays. A review of The Magical Chorus: A History of Russian Culture from Tolstoy to Solzhenitsyn by Solomon Volkov. Can the Bill James approach to numbers work in basketball?
