REVIEWS

I write free-lance reviews, mostly of books and films, for various print and Web-based publications.

I. THE OREGONIAN

I have written book reviews for the Oregonian for the past four years. The list below includes all the titles I've covered. Some will link to the Oregonian's Web site, others to pages on this site because the original reviews do not appear to be accessible for free any longer on the Oregonian's site.

• Camus: A Romance, by Elizabeth Hawes (August 9, 2009)
• The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World, by Paul Collins (July 2, 2009)
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford (February 6, 2009)
• Hot, Flat, and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman (Sept. 28, 2008)
• Telex From Cuba, by Rachel Kushner (July 13, 2008)
• The Lazarus Project, by Aleksandar Hemon (May 4, 2008)
• Song Yet Sung, by James McBride (Feb. 17, 2008)
• A Soul on Trial, by Robin R. Cutler (Dec. 16, 2007)
• A Life Decoded: My Genome: My Life, by J. Craig Venter (Nov. 11, 2007)
• The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, by Steven Pinker (Sept. 23, 2007)
• Landsman, by Peter Charles Melman (July 15, 2007)
• What Becomes You, by Aaron Link (April 29, 2007)
• Grace (Eventually), by Anne Lamott (April 1, 2007)
• Thunderstruck, by Erik Larson (Nov. 12, 2006)
• All Aunt Hagar's Children, by Edward P. Jones
• The Grail: a year ambling & shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir in the whole wild world, by Brian Doyle (April 9, 2006)
• Mozart and Leadbelly, by Ernest J. Gaines (Dec. 4, 2005)
• Patrick O'Brian: the Making of a Novelist 1914-1949, by Nikolai Tolstoy (Oct. 9, 2005)
• The World is Flat: a brief history of the Twenty-First Century, by Thomas L. Friedman (May 1, 2005)
• A Great Improvisation: Ben Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, by Stacy Schiff (April 24, 2005)
• John Kenneth Galbraith: His Life, His Politics, His Economics, by Richard Parker (March 13, 2005)
• Splendid Solution: Jonas Salk and the Conquest of Polio, by Jeffrey Kluger (Jan. 23, 2005)

II. THE CALIFORNIA LITERARY REVIEW

The California Literary Review is a Web zine for which I have been writing the past four years. In contrast to print-based media, I can write as long and in as much detail as I like. The following are my reviews for this publication, with approximate dates of composition prior to the spring of 2007 when site owner Paul Comstock updated it:

• The Language of Bees, by Laurie R. King (August 20, 2009)
• Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa, by R.A. Scotti (June 29, 2009)
• Nothing To Be Frightened Of, by Julian Barnes (January 13, 2009)
• Confessions of an Eco-Sinner: Tracking Down the Sources of My Stuff, by Fred Pearce (December 21, 2008)
• Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong: Reopening the Case of the Hound of the Baskervilles, by Pierre Bayard (December 7, 2008)
• The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman (Nov. 16, 2007)
• I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Life and Dirty Times of Warren Zevon, by Crystal Zevon (Oct. 4, 2007)
• Out of Thin Air: Dinosaurs, Birds, and Earth's Ancient Atmosphere, by Peter Douglas Ward (July 23, 2007)
• Let There Be Rock: The Story of AC/DC, by Susan Masino, (January 2007)
• The War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Decline of the West, by Niall Ferguson (December 2006)
• In Character: Actors Acting, by Howard Schatz (July 2006)
• Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles, by Geoff Emerick (May 2006)
• I, Wabenzi, by Rafi Zabor (May 2006)
• Gen-e-sis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origin, by Robert M. Hazen (November 2005)
• Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, by Stephanie Coontz (September 2005)
• Empire of the Stars, by Arthur I. Miller (August 2005)

III. DocumentaryFilms.net

This is a site devoted to the shooting, marketing, and discussion of documentary films. Over the past few years I've written extensive reviews of the following documentaries:

• "Courting Condi"
• "Dreams With Sharp Teeth" (Harlan Ellison)
• "March of the Penguins"
• "Fahrenheit 9/11"
• "Bush's Brain"
• "Winged Migration"
• "The Fog of War"
• "Charlie: The Films and Life of Charles Chaplin"
• "Spellbound"
• "Lost in La Mancha"
• "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworth Working With Time"
• "Walking With Dinosaurs"
• "Keep the River On Your Right: a modern cannibal tale"
• "Startup.com"
• "Gibtown"
• "Visions of Light" (June 4, 2001)
• "James Ellroy: Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction" (May 28, 2001)
• "Hands on a Hard Body" (May 28, 2002)
• "Fire on the Track: the Steve Prefontaine Story" (May 28, 2001)
  

VI. Various

Below are reviews of books and films for various miscellaneous publications and venues:

• "Young Guns," The Roseburg News-Review, 1988
  

Contact David Loftus

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