Roberta Silman’s engaging and deeply felt novel is a reminder of what it means to carry a historical burden on both a personal and national level.
Search Results for: roberta silman
Book Review: “The Wrong End of the Telescope” — A Stunning Achievement
This is a wonderful novel about a pressing humanitarian subject, Syrian refugees and the people who helped, as well as an exploration of identity and loss and triumph.
Book Review: Elizabeth Warren and Alexander S. Vindman — Gifted with a Moral Compass
The idea of America is elusive and sometimes, like right now, in danger of disappearing. That is why I have found myself turning for comfort to two books that can give us some perspective as to how to move forward.
Documentary Review: PBS’s “Hemingway” — Inside an American Legend
If you love fiction you should devote several hours to watching Hemingway. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick have brought a special tenderness to this series, something deeper and more compelling than previous Burns documentaries.
Book Review: Tom Stoppard’s “Leopoldstadt” — Closing the Circle, Perfectly
This is a great work, more linear than Tom Stoppard’s earlier dramas, yet filled with such intelligence and compassion that it will be read and seen for years and years and, perhaps, over time be regarded as his richest, most haunting play.
Book Review: “Renato!” — Novelist Eugene Mirabelli, Creator of Inwardness
What a pleasure it is to revel in this work, which expresses enduring values in such an original way.
Book Review: Colum McCann’s “Apeirogon” — Showing a Path Forward
Although some of Apeirogon is painful, this novel can inspire you to think differently and even to act, which is surely welcome after this horrible year in which we have all felt so helpless.
Arts Feature: Recommended Books, 2020
An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.
Book Review: A Brilliant “Homeland Elegies” — Indispensable Witness
What Ayad Akhtar reveals, with stunning detail and a passion and an urgency rarely seen in American fiction, is that his is a story marked by a loneliness similar to that found in Melville, Dreiser, and T.S. Eliot, among others, and that puts him squarely in their company.
Literary Appreciation: D. H. Lawrence’s “Women in Love” at 100
I hope this centennial will inspire readers to immerse themselves in this enormously important, rich, and vibrant work.