Roberta Silman

Book Review: “The Old Priest” — Exquisite Stories About Being Human

October 15, 2013
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This small but important book is a collection of stories about being human. It explores, even probes, the inner recesses of its characters without pretense or flamboyance.

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Book Review: “The Hanging Garden” — A Posthumous Gift from a Literary Giant

August 4, 2013
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This novella is a gift to all of us who love Patrick White’s strangely alive prose and a welcome addition to his oeuvre. And for those who don’t know his work, it is a terrific way to be introduced to one of the 20th century’s finest writers.

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Theater Review: Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen” — Brought Memorably to Life on Stage

July 23, 2013
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The agile hand of adaptor and director Aaron Posner has given us a production of Chaim Potok’s novel “The Chosen” that our children and grandchildren must see.

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Book Review: “In the Land of the Living” — A Coming-of-Age Yarn Mixed With Grief

July 18, 2013
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Austin Ratner’s follow up to “The Jump Artist” is an an exuberant, terrific novel — for its weaknesses, as well as its strengths.

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Fuse Commentary: Letter from the Hinterland — Cheering on Children and the Arts

June 22, 2013
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What is perhaps most astonishing is that families of every economic stripe, even those for whom it is a great sacrifice, are seeing to it that their children experience these pleasures, despite the sad fact that schools all over the country are cutting back on arts programs.

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Book Review: Israeli Novelist A.B. Yehoshua’s Fascinating “Retrospective”

May 23, 2013
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This fascinating book ends, leaving the reader with all sorts of questions — but that is exactly what really good fiction always does. Opening our minds, etching characters in our imaginations, and generating all sorts of possibilities.

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Fuse Book Review: Inclement “Climates”

May 7, 2013
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While reading Andre Maurois’ “Climates” you feel your world narrowing in uncomfortable ways.

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Book Review: “The Wanting” — Ambitious and Audacious Fiction about the Middle East

April 16, 2013
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There are so many characters to root for in “The Wanting” that you tend to read with your head swimming, and with an increasing sense of urgency as the senseless is revealed to have a logic of its own.

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Book Review: A Remarkable “My Beloved World”

February 19, 2013
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This is not just a story of a plucky girl succeeding; in weaving her complicated story and giving credit to those who helped her to understand how to think critically and how to develop her own moral philosophy, Sonia Sotomayor never forgets that luck and serendipity also play a part.

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

February 3, 2013
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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.

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