Vernon Bogdanor reviews Peter Conrad's Verdi and/or Wagner: Two Men, Two Worlds, Two Centuries for the New Statesman, 5 December.

Mark Polizzotti, "Patabiographical," bookforum, Dec/Jan, reviews Alastair Brotchie's new biography of the French playwright, Alfred Jarry: A Pataphysical Life.

Franklin Foer, "Macho Pointy-Head," The Book, 30 December, reviews Daniel Ruddy, ed., Theodore Roosevelt's History of the United States: His Own Words.

Alec Ash interviews "Rana Mitter on 100 Years of Modern China," The Browser, 13 December, for the Oxford historian's recommendation of five essential books on the subject.

Chet Raymo, "The Secret Life of Heddy Lamarr," Globe and Mail, 9 December, Barbara Spindell for the Barnes and Noble Review, 9 December, and Dwight Garner, "Glamour and Munitions: A Screen Siren's Wartime Ingenuity," NYT, 13 December, review Richard Rhodes's Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr.

Christopher Byrd, "Our Country, Our Critic," Democracy, Winter, reviews Richard M. Cook, ed., Alfred Kazin's Journals.