Roberta Silman

Book Review: Transformation Amid an Egypt in Decay — “The House of Jasmine”

February 3, 2013
Posted in , ,

Though written in 1984, The House of Jasmine’s description of widespread political corruption and social decay in the Sadat era is powerfully relevant to the uprisings of 2011 when Mubarak was ousted and that are still roiling Egypt today.

Read More

Book Review: “Thinner Than Skin” — Ambitious to a Fault

January 8, 2013
Posted in , ,

Uzma Aslam Khan is a wonderful writer whose descriptions of the northern part of Pakistan and the fast fading way of life that had been lived there for hundreds of years are sometimes stunning.

Read More

Book Review: The Wonderful and Silly Adventures of “The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared”

December 8, 2012
Posted in , ,

Touted in author Jonas Jonasson’s native Sweden as the perfect antidote to the grim noir Swedish trilogy that begins with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo this delicious book has sold over 3 million copies around the world.

Read More

Arts Remembrance: A Grateful Farewell to this Generation’s Best Champion of the Short Story

November 18, 2012
Posted in ,

Isaiah Sheffer’s lasting contribution will be his almost single-handed revival of interest in that most beguiling of fictional forms, the short story.

Read More

Book Review: A Wilted “Black Flower” From Korea

October 28, 2012
Posted in , ,

I can see why celebrated Korean writer Young-ha Kim was attracted to this real life story of about a thousand Koreans emigrating from Asia in 1904.

Read More

Book Review: Steve Stern’s Fabulous “Book of Mischief”

September 27, 2012
Posted in ,

Here is a writer whose vision and generous spirit cannot be ignored. And that Steve Stern writes a prose as fine as anyone could wish must be emphasized, as well.

Read More

Book Review: “The Greatcoat” – A Great Ghost Story?

September 12, 2012
Posted in ,

I can say, without equivocation, that Helen Dunmore’s novel “The Greatcoat” is no “The Turn of the Screw.”

Read More

Fuse Opera Review/Commentary: A Magisterial “Lost in the Stars” at Glimmerglass

August 13, 2012
Posted in , ,

When the performance ended and I sat there, silent, reveling with the rest of the audience in the goose bumps that inevitably occur after such an experience, I knew, in my bones, that no movie, however good, could be as good as this.

Read More

Book Review: “Motherless Child” — The Redemptive Powers of Classical Music

July 31, 2012
Posted in , ,

For anyone interested in classical music, “Motherless Child” is a novel to be savored. And there is no doubt that Zeitlin has gotten those details right. She is the widow of the great violinist and teacher, Zvi Zeitlin, who died this past May at 90.

Read More

Fiction Review: “Sarah Thornhill” — A Lyrical Song in the Australian Outback

June 27, 2012
Posted in ,

You are hardly aware of the historical facts. Kate Grenville internalizes them so completely in her novel there is not a sentence that “stinks of history,” as a friend of mine once said about whole historical fiction genre.

Read More

Recent Posts