J.B. McDonald

Wild Things

My review of Graeme Gibson's anthology The Bedside Book of Beasts: A Wildlife Miscellany, for The New York Times Book Review.

A Century of Bugaboos

Language may change, but pedantry is forever. And as Jan Freeman demonstrates in Ambrose Bierce’s Write It Right: The Celebrated Cynic’s Language Peeves Deciphered, Appraised, and Annotated for 21st-Century Readers, so too is the tradition of modern-day pedants’ picking apart the outmoded irritants of the quibblers who came before them. Here's the full blog post.

Style and Alchemy

My review of Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk & White's The Elements of Style, for The New York Times Book Review.

Buzzy Book

I wish I’d had the chance to read Lorrie Moore’s new novel, A Gate at the Stairs, before heading to the Boundary Waters area of Minnesota in July. I spent most of the vacation flailing wildly and slapping at my body and squealing and crying in the woods, and feeling altogether ridiculous — all because of bugs! Ms. Moore would have understood, I think. Here's the full blog post.