Books

Book Review: Writer Delmore Schwartz — New Directions Gives His Volatile Brilliance its Due

May 7, 2016
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Once and For All asserts the value of Delmore Schwartz’s provocative and multifaceted literary legacy.

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Literary Appreciation: “The Passion for the Thing” — An Argument for Writer Harry Crews

May 2, 2016
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The Southern-inflected melee of Harry Crews’ universe is like a Hieronymus Bosch canvas dipped in whiskey and flour and deep-fried.

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Book Review and Appreciation: Murray Talks Music, and So Much More — the Legacy and Lessons of Albert Murray

May 2, 2016
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Murray Talks Music shows how brilliant Albert Murray could be even when he didn’t have time to polish his prose.

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Book Review: Helen Dunmore’s Terrific “Exposure”

April 28, 2016
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There are resemblances to Virginia Woolf in Helen Dunmore’s awareness that much of family life lies in what is not said as much as in what is said.

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Book Review: Don DeLillo’s “Zero K” — The Wages of Cheating Death

April 28, 2016
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Zero K will prove refreshing to Don DeLillo’s readers in that it’s a novel of faith — a concept that he’s always been skeptical of.

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Book Review: “John Quincy Adams: Militant Spirit” — A Sympathetic Look at a New England Aristocrat

April 27, 2016
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James Traub has admirably captured the man inside the public figure, giving us a complex view of a typical New England grandee.

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Book Review: Alvin Epstein’s “Dressing Room Stories” — Vivid Theater History

April 26, 2016
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Alvin Epstein’s recollections about his decades as a stage performer have been gathered in the form of tales abut what happened behind the scenes,.

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Book Review: Antoine Volodine’s “Bardo or Not Bardo” — Seriously Spoofing the Afterlife

April 21, 2016
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One reads this strangely engaging book, like Volodine’s others, with a sort of knitted-brow amusement.

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Book Review: “Movie Freak” — A Critic Who Doesn’t Hold Back

April 13, 2016
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If Owen Gleiberman has any complaint against today’s world of criticism it’s that everyone seems to be speaking in one voice.

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Book Review: Mathematicians in Combat — Michèle Audin’s “One Hundred Twenty-One Days”

April 11, 2016
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Audin scrutinizes political commitment when it is undertaken by representatives of an intellectual discipline detached from the real world.

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