Clea Simon

Book Review: “A Grave Robbery” — Adventures of a Kick-Ass Victorian Feminist

March 9, 2024
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As in her previous thrillers, Donna Raybourn’s dry wit serves double duty: defining our erudite heroine and presenting her view of a world that does not know what to make of her.

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Book Review: “The Scandalous Confessions of Lydia Bennet, Witch” — Jane Austen, Bedeviled

November 9, 2023
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Melinda Taub’s thoroughly enjoyable new novel joins other notable pastiches of Jane Austen’s classic story.

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Book Review: “The Secret Hours” — A Masterful New Book from Today’s Premier Espionage Author

September 9, 2023
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When “The Secret Hours” flares up ­­– notably on two separate, devastating occasions ­­­– the story delivers more emotional heft than Mick Herron’s previous books.

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Book Review: “Milk Fed” — The Glory of the Zaftig

December 1, 2021
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For all the sensual lushness of Melissa Broder’s writing, that hard center remains, one where appetite invites awareness, bringing with it pain as well as satiety.

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Book Review: It’s a Cat’s Life — “Penny”

April 27, 2021
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Penny, whose many moods are sensitively drawn in this softly colored volume, is, perhaps like all cats, a philosopher.

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Concert Review: Marcia Ball and Sonny Landreth at ONCE — Plenty Rousing

February 26, 2020
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At 70, Marcia Ball is a non-stop pro, particularly at pacing. Early barn burners gave way to the slow blues of “Just Kiss Me.”

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Music Commentary: Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — Gender Diversity?

June 12, 2018
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By taking the stage with 15 musicians, none of whom is female, the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra presents the music as segregated and outdated.

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Fuse Book Review: “The Bone Clocks” — Not Sufficiently Wound Up

October 10, 2014
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While The Bone Clocks is compulsively readable, there are too many parts of this book that can only be called lazy.

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Book Review: “The Paying Guests” — Sarah Waters Serves Up More of History’s Ghosts

September 15, 2014
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We all have ghosts, the author seems to say. And in a larger sense, Sarah Waters’s ghosts are those of country and culture, her books a catalogue of the social changes shaking England from the Victorian era on.

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Fuse Views: This is What We Look Like — On “Selfies” and Self-Image

March 6, 2014
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Sometimes using the Twitter handle #itsokKimNovak, at other times just linking to Laura Lipmann’s Facebook page, women – primarily writers and our friends – have started posting our own “raw” photos.

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