Good News: after five months, The Edge of the American West, winner of 2008's Cliopatria Award for Best Group Blog, has dehiatusized itself. Welcome back, Ari and Eric. Hat tip.

Alec Ash interviews "Norman Davies on Europe's Vanished States," The Browser, 27 October for his recommendation of five essential books on the subject.

Vladislav Davidzon, "Odessa Story," The Book, 27 October, reviews Charles King's Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams.

Alexander Rose, "Bounteous Misperceptions," WSJ, 25 October, reviews Anne Salmond's Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas.

James Longenbach, "This Is Just to Say: On William Carlos Williams," Nation, 25 October, reviews Herbert Leibowitz's "Something Urgent I Have to Say to You" The Life and Works of William Carlos Williams.

Andrew J. Bacevich, "Solving for X: On George F. Kennan," Nation, 25 October, reviews John Lewis Gaddis's George F. Kennan: An American Life.

Janet Maslin, "The ‘70s, as Dramatic as a Movie," NYT, 26 October, reviews Brian Kellow's Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark and James Wolcott's Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York. Frank Rich, "Roaring at the Screen with Pauline Kael," NYT, 27 October, reviews Kellow's Pauline Kael and Sanford Schwartz, ed., The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael.

Miriam Elder, "Tsar quality: Bolshoi theatre reopens after six-year overhaul," Guardian, 27 October, previews the reopening of Moscow's Bolshoi.