Books

Author Interview: Pulitzer Prize Winner David W. Blight — Speaking of Frederick Douglass in the Witch City

November 13, 2019
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“You can read Frederick Douglass forever and still just encounter new things, new ideas, new passages, new phrases. He’s that kind of writer. It’s like reading Emerson or even Shakespeare.”

Book Review: “Vernon Subutex 1” — Rock and Roll, Drugs, and Sex Among the Over-The-Hill Gang

November 7, 2019
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Virginie Despentes novel reads like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia mashed with Don Quixote and set in contemporary Paris.

Arts Commentary: “Counterculture in Boston 1968 – 1980s” — High and Heady Days

November 6, 2019
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About the post-Reagan era, Boston Phoenix and Boston After Dark editor, Arnie Reisman, observes: “Everything went to sleep, and while we were sleeping, the Republican Party grew six more heads.”

Book Review: “On Fire” — An Optimistic Take on Climate Change

November 2, 2019
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In this book, Naomi Klein shines a light on the path to a politically and economically just model of sustainability.

Book Review: “My Mother’s Tears” — Mystery Matriarch

November 1, 2019
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Michel Layaz’s narrator is juggling much more than nostalgia — his traumas are overwhelmingly odd and disturbing, almost to the point of absurdity.

Book Review: “The Topeka School” — Urban Neuroticism

November 1, 2019
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All told, The Topeka School is engaging — it’s a talented and kaleidoscopic story touching down just about everywhere in modern life.

Book Review: “Experiments with Empire” — Ways to Re-envision the World

October 28, 2019
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Experiments With Empire makes some perceptive points about how the connections between ethnology and fiction can help us re-imagine the world.

Literary Appreciation: The Late Harold Bloom — Pursuer of “Difficult Pleasures”

October 17, 2019
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“What is the function of literary criticism in a Disinformation Age? Read, reread, describe, evaluate, appreciate: that is the art of literary criticism for the present time.” — Harold Bloom

Author Interview: Tim O’Brien — The Sound of a Father’s Voice

October 16, 2019
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I wanted to give my kids this gift of a book about them and for them.

Book Interview: The Late Harold Bloom Talks Religion

October 16, 2019
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Literary critic Harold Bloom passed away at the age of 89 two days ago; here’s an illuminating interview with Bloom from 2005.

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