Bill Hawkins of Portland, Oregon has combined a distinguished career as a practicing architect with a parallel life as a writer and champion of historical preservation. The 19th century cast iron buildings which have survived near the Willamette River in downtown Portland owe their existence in part to Hawkins’ advocacy. His most recent book, “The Legacy of the […]
Reviews
Review of “Faldo/Norman” by Andy Farrell.
Andy Farrell, Faldo/Norman. The 1996 Masters: A duel that defined an era. Elliott & Thompson, March, 2014 in the UK, May 1, 2014 in the USA, distributed by Trafalgar Square. $24.95. As the final round of the 2014 Masters is about to get underway, recalling dramatic finishes past raises hope for similar drama […]
A Review of Ghost Light, By Joseph O’Connor
This review first appeared in The Oregonian on March 19, 2011. GHOST LIGHT Joseph O’Connor Farrar, Straus and Giroux. $24.00, 256 pages Loosely based on the lives of the Irish actress Maire O’Neill (né Molly Allgood) and her lover, the playwright John Millington Synge, Joseph O’Connor’s Ghost Light convincingly inhabits the vanished world of Edwardian […]
Reflections on Jack Nicklaus’s Literary Life
This review of Jack Nicklaus’s autobiography and Mark Shaw’s biography of Nicklaus first appeared in the June 28, 1997 issue of Golf Week. If I were reviewing books on Nicklaus today, I would certainly mention Nicklaus’s first autobiography, written with the assistance of the estimable Herbert Warren Wind when Nicklaus was only 29. Its tone […]
Margaret Thatcher’s Divisive Legacy
Under the headline “Parliament Debates Thatcher Legacy, as Vitriol Flows Online and in Streets,” the NY Times reported that Margaret Thatcher “stirred deep divisions” in death, just as she had in life. “Her death has been received in many quarters with a vituperation that was notably absent in the United States with the passing of […]
Ancestral Links by John Garrity: An Appreciation
Ancestral Links, by John Garrity. Published in 2009 by New American Library. An occasional series available at http://theaposition.com/johnstrawn/: The Best Golf Books The best golf writing maneuvers along a treacherous ridgeline separating the chasm of sentimentality from the gorge of self-indulgence. There’s something about golf that gets the sap rising. In Ancestral Links, John Garrity […]