Books

Book Review: Three New Novels Explore the Power of Trauma

March 31, 2015
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A trio of new novels suggest that bad as it gets may not be as bad as it can get.

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Book Review: Antonio Tabucchi’s “Time Ages in a Hurry” — A Diary of Dreams

March 25, 2015
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Antonio Tabucchi’s fluid style moves easily from realism to surrealism, banal conversation to poetic free association, reportage to allusion.

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Book Review: “The Dirty Dust” — Voices From the Underground, Sublime, Spiteful, Satiric

March 23, 2015
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The Dirty Dust is a novel of almost unbelievable invention, humor, pathos, eloquence, and fury.

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Book Review: “The Sexual Night” — Origins Unknown

March 21, 2015
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French writer Pascal Quignard strives to peer beyond, or behind, what psychoanalysts typically rationalize as the primal parental realities.

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Book Review: “Happy Are the Happy” — You Can’t Get There from Here

March 17, 2015
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Yasmina Reza’s dollhouse of a novel is a miniaturist’s miracle.

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Book Review: Scott McCloud’s “The Sculptor” — A Life in His Hands

March 14, 2015
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A graphic novel about the death of art and the art of death

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Book Review: “Madison’s Music” — Listen to the Melody of the First Amendment?

March 12, 2015
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If James Madison was so verbose that his draft version of the First Amendment could be cut in half, then he can hardly be called an artist with words.

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Book Review: The Life of Lou Reed — Those With No Moral Compass Beware

March 12, 2015
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We learn, over and over, that the author of the song “Vicious” dispensed his legendary acts of cruelty with sadistic aplomb.

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Book Review: Using Words as Weapons — Alain Mabanckou’s Tribute to James Baldwin

March 11, 2015
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Like James Baldwin, Alain Mabanckou is striving to see beyond comforting or righteous notions and grasp a world full of movement, migration, diversity, and unexpected mixtures.

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Book Review: “Blood Brothers” — Down-and-Out in Germany’s Zero Hour

March 10, 2015
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Anyone interested in understanding Europe in the 20th century, or in the fascinating metropolis that is Berlin, or in a riveting depiction of down-and-out youth who refuse to surrender to the system–will want to pick up Blood Brothers.

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