I heartily recommend M.M. Blume’s excellent Fallout, which ably synthesizes large amounts of archival, historical, and biographical material from three continents.
Life Commentary: A Cultural Journalist Dealing with Cancer During Covid
It’s never a good time to be diagnosed with cancer, but June 10th, 2020, was among the worst. By that day, 7,454 people had died of COVID-19 in my state of Massachusetts.
Book Review: “Twilight of Democracy” — A Slim Investigation of the “Clerks”
Twilight of Democracy made me yearn (uncharacteristically) for hard scientific data to supplement Anne Applebaum’s punditry about the pundits.
Film Review: “There Are No Lions in Tel Aviv” — The Story of Rabbi Doolittle
This is one of the best documentaries I have ever seen, one that I plan to view again and again.
Book Review: “Here We Are” — Philip Roth’s Boswell
This glimpse into the relationship of two American Jewish writers makes for good reading during the pandemic: an intelligent, gracefully written memoir of friendship.
Book Review: “These Fevered Days” — Exploring an Enigma
From the first page of Martha Ackmann’s new book on Emily Dickinson, you know you’re reading something entirely different.
Book Review: Vivian Gornick’s “Unfinished Business” — Remembrance of Pages Past
Vivian Gornick is an elegist of the transformative experience of reading and writing, what she calls “the companionateness” of books.
Book Review: “Life Isn’t Everything: Mike Nichols, as remembered by 150 of his Closest Friends” — A Frothy, Gossip-filled Bauble
If you are a fan of Mike Nichols’ large and elegant body of work, you’ll regret as I did that the authors did not take the time to create the kind of book he deserved.
Book Review: “Know My Name: a memoir’ — Required Reading
No author has addressed the issue of sexual assault so much on her own terms, and in such a personal and powerful way.
Theater Review: “Curve of Departure” — A Wonderfully Provocative Comedy
Playwright Rachel Bonds has written an often-hilarious script which nonetheless deals with such serious and widespread issues as spousal and child abandonment, drug addiction, the right to death with dignity, and same-sex adoption of children.