Books

Book Review: “The Bridal Chair” — Surviving Genius

April 2, 2015
Posted in , ,

The Bridal Chair will not only answer many questions about this complicated, famous family; like Chagall’s best work, it will also linger in the mind.

Book Review: “Going into the City” — A Restrained Portrait of the Critic as a Young Man

March 31, 2015
Posted in , ,

Robert Christgau, the author of 14,000 record reviews, makes the case for expansiveness as the best aesthetic.

Book Review: Three New Novels Explore the Power of Trauma

March 31, 2015
Posted in , ,

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

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

March 25, 2015
Posted in , , ,

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

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

March 23, 2015
Posted in , , ,

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

Book Review: “The Sexual Night” — Origins Unknown

March 21, 2015
Posted in , , ,

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

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

March 17, 2015
Posted in , , ,

Yasmina Reza’s dollhouse of a novel is a miniaturist’s miracle.

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

March 14, 2015
Posted in , ,

A graphic novel about the death of art and the art of death

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

March 12, 2015
Posted in , ,

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.

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

March 12, 2015
Posted in , , , ,

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

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives