reviews

Ho Ho Ho...? Author:  Eric Kaplan The conundrum isn’t as simple as you might think.  Either Santa exists or he doesn’t, right?  If you’re more than ten years old, you may be very confident in your answer, but if you give Eric Kaplan – a Jewish graduate student in philosophy at UC-Berkeley – a chance, you may begin to realize that you don’t really know what you think you know.  In a surprisingly entertaining investigation of some pretty deep philosophy, Kaplan presents his answer to the puzzle in Does Santa Exist? A Harvard graduate, Kaplan has studied philosophy most of [...]

A Hero in Wartime... Author:  S. C. Gwynne Having spent my entire sentient life in the great northern state of Wisconsin – land of cheese and ice fishing – the name Stonewall Jackson doesn’t elicit any deep seated passions in my heart.  Other than being aware that he was a prominent Confederate general in the Civil War, I didn’t know much about the man.  But when I saw that S.C. Gwynne – the recipient of much acclaim for his 2010 biography of Quanah Parker – had recently penned a biography of the famous Virginian I was guardedly optimistic, despite my [...]