Reviews by Phil Nel

All reviews appeared in Charleston's Post and Courier unless otherwise indicated.
Titles for Post and Courier reviews were supplied by the newspaper; other titles are my own.
A complete list of other reviews can be found in the "Reviews" sections of my curriculum vitae.
Alphabetical Index: Auster, Bordo, Borges, Boyd, Boyle, Buckley, Carter, Cranz, Dangor, Eggers, Fadiman, Gibson, Gleick, Hammett, Jablonski, Jen, Kaplan, Kimmel, Kunkel, Margolick, Marnham, Marquis, McQuain, Melley, Moxy Fruvous, Proulx, Saltzman, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Stilgoe
 
June 2002: "Metaphors and Paranoia: Two Approaches to Contemporary American Fiction," essay-review of Timothy Melley's Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America and Arthur Saltzman's This Mad "Instead": Governing Metaphors in Contemporary Fiction. Published in Modern Fiction Studies 48.2 (Summer 2002): 480-85. Accessible only via Project Muse. (This review is not hosted on my site.)
 
April 2001: Review of James Carter's Talking Books. Published in The Lion and the Unicorn 25.2 (April 2001): 328-30. Accessible only via Project Muse. (This review is not hosted on my site.)
 
28 May 2000: Michael Kimmel, The Gendered Society. (turned in on 4 May). Note: the Post and Courier changed the opening paragraph of this review; I have changed it back to the original version.
 
9 April 2000: David Margolick, Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Café Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. (turned in on 19 March)
 
2 April 2000: Letters from the Editor: The New Yorker's Harold Ross, edited by Thomas Kunkel. (turned in on 12 March)
 
2 April 2000: Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. (turned in on 28 February)
 
14 November 1999: Dashiell Hammett, Nightmare Town: Stories. (turned in on 3 October)
 
7 November 1999: James Gleick, Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything. (turned in on 12 October)
 
5 September 1999: Susan Bordo, The Male Body: A New Look at Men in Public and Private. (turned in on 9 August). Note: the Post and Courier changed the book's title to Today's The Male Body. Now that the review is hosted on my site, I've corrected thePost and Courier's error.
 
22 August 1999: Bruce Eric Kaplan, No One You Know: A Collection of Cartoons. (turned in on 21 June)
 
15 August 1999: Gish Jen, Who's Irish?: Stories. (turned in on 21 June)
 
25 July 1999: Annie Proulx, Close Range: Wyoming Stories. (turned in on 14 May)
 
18 July 1999: Paul Auster, Timbuktu: A Novel. (turned in on 2 June)
 
27 June 1999: Edward Jablonski, Irving Berlin: American Troubador. (turned in on 15 March)
 
20 June 1999: Jeffrey McQuain, Never Enough Words: How Americans Invented Expressions as Ingenious, Ornery, and Colorful as Themselves. (turned in on 7 May). Bonus! Click here to read the original, longer version.
 
9 May 1999: Achmat Dangor, Kafka's Curse: A Novel. (turned in on 8 March)
 
14 March 1999: Patrick Marnham, Dreaming with His Eyes Open: A Life of Diego Rivera. (turned in on 20 December 1998)
 
28 February 1999: Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí. (turned in on 8 February)
 
24 January 1999: T. Coraghessan Boyle, Stories. (turned in on 1 December 1998). Note: in the penultimate paragraph, the Post and Courier changed "simulacra" to "similar," a substitution which makes no sense whatsoever. Now that the review is hosted here, I've corrected thePost and Courier's error.
 
17 January 1999: William Boyd, Armadillo. (turned in on 3 November 1998)
 
10 January 1999: Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. (turned in on 25 October 1998)
 
November 1998: Brother Ty, with Christopher Buckley and John Tierney, God Is My Broker.     Unpublished.
 
8 November 1998: Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley.
 
25 October 1998: Lorrie Moore, Birds of America: Stories.
 
11 October 1998: Galen Cranz, The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body, and Design.
 
27 September 1998: John R. Stilgoe, Outside Lies Magic: Regaining History and Awareness in Everyday Places.
 
August 1998: Squirrel Nut Zippers, Perennial Favorites.     Unpublished.
 
August 1998: Don Marquis, archyology ii (the final dig).     Unpublished.
 
17 October 1997: "College A Capella on Crack?" Published as "Fruvous Four Blends Witty Music Tonight" in the Vanderbilt Hustler.
 
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Unpublished reviews are © 1998-2002 by Philip Nel. Post and Courier reviews are © 1998-2000 by the Post and Courier. Read the Disclaimer.
This page was last updated on September 10, 2010