Kent State's Julio Pino is at it again.

Colin Dickey, "Quack Prophet," Lapham's Quarterly, 30 October, re-assesses the long career of Nostradamus in western history.

Tim Black, "Why Malthus is back in fashion," spiked review of books, October, looks again at Thomas Malthus's An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Richard Beeman, "James Madison, ‘the Father of Politics'," NYT, 28 October, reviews Richard Brookhiser's James Madison.

Kevin Boyle, "On the Road to Harpers Ferry," NYT, 28 October, reviews Tony Horwitz's Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War.

Eric Banks, "Wars They Have Seen," CHE, reviews Barbara Will's Unlikely Collaboration: Gertrude Stein, Bernard Faÿ, and the Vichy Dilemma and Antoine Compagnon's Le Cas Bernard Faÿ: Du Collège de France à l'indignité nationale. Benjamin Ivry, "Samuel Beckett's Letters Reveal Roots of Resistance," Jewish Daily Forward, 27 October, draws on The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 1929-1956, 2 volumes, and Samuel Beckett's German Diaries, 1936–1937.

Frank Rich, "Roaring at the Screen With Pauline Kael," NYT, 27 October, reviews Brian Kellow's Pauline Kael: A Life in the Dark and Sanford Schwartz, ed., The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael.

Marshall Poe, "Meme Weaver," Atlantic, October, tells how his proposal for a "big idea" book was born – and died.