Books

Arts Remembrance: Peter Matthiessen – The Last Frontiersman

April 19, 2014
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The late writer Peter Matthiessen was one of the last great frontiersmen, one of the last great travelers taking voyages of discovery.

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Poetry Review: “Book of Hours” — From Mourning to Celebration

April 18, 2014
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Kevin Young’s poetic line is generally on the concise side, generating a pithy, earthy, evocative quality that hovers somewhere between the haiku-like jazziness of Robert Creeley and the delta blues of Son House or Skip James.

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Book Review: “Long Mile Home” — An Informative View of the Boston Marathon Bombings That Lacks Investigative Muscle

April 15, 2014
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A fast-paced, fact-laden book by two “Boston Globe” reporters about the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings that doesn’t answer the tough questions.

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Book Review: A Murder Inspired by Literature? — “Blood Will Out”

April 13, 2014
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Everyone these days is racing through “Blood Will Out,” an undeniably enthralling three-hour read.

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Book News: “The Old Priest” — A Finalist for the 2014 PEN/Hemingway Award

April 11, 2014
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Arts Fuse writer Anthony Wallace talks about the latest accolade for his short story collection “The Old Priest” — it was a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Hemingway Award.

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Film Commentary: Wes Anderson, Stefan Zweig, and Discovering the Value of “The World of Yesterday”

April 10, 2014
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Perhaps a movie such as “The Grand Budapest Hotel, which is much more than a zany comedy, can lead us back, as director Wes Anderson may have intended, to the fabulous writing of Stefan Zweig.

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Book Review: “To the End of the Land” — A Work of Art About Israel, Fear, and Love

April 9, 2014
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“To the End of the Land” is about the devastation of war, how war erodes the human spirit, yet how that spirit is far more resilient that we may have ever suspected.

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Book Review: David Grossman’s “Falling Out of Time” — It Takes A Village

April 7, 2014
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“Falling Out of Time” is a book that gives all the truth that Israeli writer David Grossman can deliver, and far more intimacy than we strangers who are his readers have earned.

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Book Review: Russia’s “Vodka Politics” — An Inseparable Duo

April 3, 2014
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What about today? Has Russia finally hit bottom and recovered? Is the political economy of vodka a thing of the past?

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Book Review: Pierre Michon and his Many Artistic “Lives”

March 31, 2014
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The books are bleak in that Pierre Michon provides no reassuring, idealistic view of the creative urge. Art leads to no transcendence, no permanent uplifting sentiment. Making poems or making pictures is a rough daily business.

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