Loreta Velazquez, cross-dresser and alleged soldier for the Confederacy, fascinated people in her own time and birthed a legend that still generates interest today. Civil War... Read More

"The National Joker" is a fascinating look at the savvy way Abraham Lincoln used mid-nineteenth-century social media. Before he became part of the Mount Rushmore quartet and one... Read More

These stories—in a sober, effective way—show how the US experiment in draconian justice has been a complete failure. Spoiler alert. The answer to the implied question in the... Read More

Historians trace Lincoln’s religious development with thorough but objective detail. University of New Mexico historians Margaret and Ferenc Szasz present an... Read More

Life for the son of the nation’s most beloved and likely greatest president was full of challenges, yet Robert Todd Lincoln (1843-1926) embraced his circumstances and thrived... Read More

“Before we are forgotten, we will be turned into kitsch. Kitsch is the stopover between being and oblivion.”—Milan Kundera So begins the opening poem in Brian Barker’s... Read More

In 1988, in rural Illinois, the decapitated body of a man was found in a field not far from several parking lots known to be frequented by gay men. Richard Nitz, a local man... Read More

A veteran of sound and sense, the author shapes his poems first with masterful craft. Line, rhythm, and diction do the work of the formal poet in these four dozen poems. His ear... Read More

Brooding, dark, and sardonic, the outsized heroes of Byron’s great poems “Childe Harold” and “Manfred” are rebellious individuals who live by their own moral codes.... Read More

"Persephone in America" (Southern Illinois University Press, 978-0-8093-2896-3) is poet Alison Townsends exploration of mothers, daughters, loss, and love. In this Crab Orchard... Read More

Of the 10,000 novels published by legitimate American imprints this year (almost one an hour!), few will greatly profit either their author or publishing house. The book trade... Read More

There are a couple of ways a politician might convince voters that he’s their guy. He can demonstrate strong leadership, or he can pander. Unfortunately, says the author,... Read More