The nation’s book critics naturally congregated when Don DeLillo’s slim new book appeared. In the latest Open Letters Peer Review, John Rodwan supplies a scorecard for the players.

In the first half of the 20th century, Louis Armstrong and Sugar Ray Robinson both rose to greatness that reached across racial divides. Two new books look at the prices they had to pay.

Elinor Wylie has not received the respect of posterity that she herself thought she deserved. John G. Rodwan, Jr. explores the reasons for that neglect, and the poetry that survives it.

In Manhood for Amateurs novelist Michael Chabon visits the strange planet known as parenthood. John G. Rodwan, Jr. follows him where plenty have gone before.

Midwest Rock icon Bob Seger’s former tour manager gives us a behind the scenes look at old time rock & roll; John G. Rodwan, Jr. turns the page.

Norman Mailer fought about writers and wrote about fighters, and even after his death, the brawling continues. John G. Rodwan, Jr. enters the ring.

Self-appointed jazz authorities like Wynton Warsalis weigh in on jazz festivals and the musicians who love them, and their listeners. John G. Rodwan, Jr., devoted listener, sorts the noise.

The noble sport of fisticuffs has done more than a little for cops, kids, and US Presidents. So why is touching the gloves so widely maligned? John G. Rodwan, Jr. steps in the ring to find out.

In The Enchantress of Florence, Salman Rushdie has written his most Melvillean novel. John G. Rodwan, Jr. indulges in some Melvillean digressions as he explains just exactly what that means.

“A sorry business this scribbling,” Joseph Conrad once confessed, and we remember him problematically. John Rodwan reappraises the murky nature of his books.

Joshua Redman’s new album Compass makes some daring allusions to the all-time titans of jazz; John G. Rodwan, Jr. listens to hear how Redman borrows from those pastmasters and how he departs from them.

That persistent bugaboo of publishers (and recently, the reading public): writers passing off others’ work as their own. Paul Maliszewski’s Fakers looks at some notorious cases, and John G. Rodwan Jr. weighs in.

The one jazz album even hardened jazz haters own – Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue – turns fifty this year. John G. Rodwan, Jr. plays out the tracks of its long, strange life.

Two seemingly dissimilar figures in the American literary landscape – Herman Melville and A. J. Liebling – shared at least one thing aside from a way with words: they weren’t afraid of a little digression now and then. John G. Rodwan Jr. follows along for the stories.

Saxophone legend John Coltrane took jazz further from its traditional sound than any artist of his day. Philip Larkin kept traditional rhyme and meter alive in English verse. Richard Palmer’s new study, Such Deliberate Disguises, attempts to make the case for one influencing the other. John G. Rodwan Jr. puts the emphasis on “attempts.”

“Write while I’m sober?” legendary pint-puller Brendan Behan once growled, “What arse would want to read that?” His opinion has been shared by literary men through the ages, but perhaps none with more fidelity than Kingsley Amis; John G. Rodwan, Jr. bellies up to the bar and spends time with some of the 20th century’s most tippling typers.

In The Same Man, David Lebedoff maintains that Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell were Doppelgängers, both in their art and their ethics; John G. Rodwan Jr. begs to differ.

Notorious critic and essayist Christopher Hitchens has commented that certain writers are not shy of repeating themselves, and his critics have fired it right back at him. John G. Rodwan, Jr. enters the echo chamber.

The vituperation that greeted Martin Amis’ collection of essays The Second Plane reached singularly quotable proportions, even for this much-vituperated British author. In our regular feature, John G. Rodwan Jr. casts a cold eye on Amis’ dour detractors.

What do you do when the courageous trailblazing author who formed your youth is accused of an unspeakable crime? John G. Rodwan, Jr. does what Orwell would have done, weighed the evidence and let the chips fall where they may.