A swashbuckling revenge tale set amid otherworldly conspiracies, Brotherhood is a fine historical adventure brimming with wit and flair.
But to dismiss them as dusty relics would be to miss out on a great deal of eccentric charm, wit and historical resonance.
With elegance, wit, and historical insight, Cannadine charts Mrs Thatcher's upbringing and influences, her political career and life after politics, the impact of her policies, and her personal reputation and political legacy.
Noah Richler, a columnist for The National Post and the son of the novelist Mordechai Richler, wrote in a recent column about the preponderance of historical themes, the absence of wit and humor, and "a dearth of books that confront the present head-on" in contemporary Canadian fiction.
Venturi and his partner John Rauch reintroduced to architectural design elements of wit, humanity, and historical reference in buildings such as the Tucker House in Katonah, New York (1975).
In all the versions of "The Four Feathers," Faversham has not yet, in 100 years, found the wit or the historical perspective to stand up to the regiment and ask: "Why are we going there?" "What do we want there?" "Why not stay home?" The courage not to go may be as rare this year or next as it was in 1898 and 1914.
It might be most accurate, though, to say that he is a street photographer in the most historical sense, the ultimate flâneur to wit, an Atget of Johannesburg.
Writing about a historical figure, however, the novelist's wit is usually smothered by the scholar's conscientiousness.
Filled with wit, humor, and sharp historical commentary, Operation Avalanche explores the common tinfoil-hat notion that there's more to government activities than meets the eye.
This is her aesthetic, light that is protean as it circles between myth, historical perspective, individual observation, narration, a quiet wit and the bright prospect of tomorrow.
