Welcome to Literary Ashland

Blitz, Vixen, Caliber and Ammunition by Ken Bruen This month I went full on on a Ken Bruen reading jag: Blitz, Vixen, Calibre and Ammunition, all written between 2003 and 2007.

Conquering the Canon by Scott Kaiser You can find my review here.

Scott Kaiser aimed to be part of all of Shakespeare’s play—38 of them, if you don’t count The Reign of King Edward III.

I’ve taken a break from academic reading for much of May and June, preparing myself for summer mode: Revenge Prey by John Sanford – Russian spies and an engaging CIA agent.

Review of How Deeply Human is Language: Chomsky, The Brain, and the AI Fantasy by Yosef Grodzinsky In this short and lucid work, Grodzinsky (Director of the Neurolinguistics Lab at the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for the Brain Sciences) provides a two-fo…

The Politics of Language by David Beaver and Jason Stanley Published in 2025, The Politics of Language, by David Beaver and Jason Stanley convincingly makes the case that most speech has ideological meaning and that the connotations of words evoke emotion…

Muscle Man by Jordan Castro A colleague who I run into the gym recommended this.

Review of Valerie Fridland, Why We Talk Funny Contrary to popular belief, we’ve all got an accent.

Valerie Fridland is a professor of linguistics in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno and the author of Like Literally Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English and the 2026 release Why We Talk Funny: The Real Story Behind Our Accents.

Renee Owen is an associate professor in the SOU School of Education and the co-author of a recently released book titled Becoming a Transformative Leader from the Inside Out (Bloomsbury Publishing, November 2025).