Books

Book Review: “Six Amendments” — Is U.S. Constitutional Change in the Air?

June 5, 2014
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Retired Associate Justice John Paul Stevens’ book Six Amendments is unlikely to restore any of the love lost between him and the GOP.

Concert Review: Singer Ute Gfrerer at Goethe Institut — An Evening of Uncommon Grace

June 4, 2014
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Singer Ute Gfrerer’s name should be spread far and wide to anyone — Jewish or not — who is interested in the music of that period, for this is first-rate work that should be heard for generations to come.

Book Review: “Plato at the Googleplex” — A Passionate and Thoughtful Look at Philosophy Today

June 3, 2014
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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s erudition, coupled to her literary skill, makes Plato at the Googleplex inviting and readable without sacrificing complexity.

Book Review: “Natura Morta” — A Powerful Still Life in Prose

June 2, 2014
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The omniscient narrator in Natura Morta is flawlessly neutral, allowing the images, minimal action, and characters’ reactions to the events of this single day in a Roman square to tell the story.

Book Review: The “Lightweight” Gallows Humor of Jean Echenoz

May 29, 2014
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Eschewing harrowing realistic description, Jean Echenoz adopts a jocular sardonic approach to the most gruesome battlefield realities.

Book Review: “On Leave” — An Engaging Anti-War Story From France

May 28, 2014
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“On Leave” is a worthwhile novel that deserves this English revival because it convincingly conveys the alienation felt by soldiers who return home on a brief leave from hostilities taking place abroad.

Book Review: “The Poets’ Wives” — What Does it Mean to be Married to a Poet?

May 23, 2014
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Taken as a whole, “The Poets’ Wives” is a fascinating, brave novel whose love of poetry breathes through all three sections.

Arts Remembrance: Polish Poet and Dramatist Tadeusz Różewicz — The Prophet of the Partial, the Herald of the Unfinished

May 22, 2014
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Tadeusz Różewicz’s best poems are blunt hammer strokes that pound at the impossibility of crafting poetry true to the sins of history.

Book Review: “The Star of Istanbul” — A Literary Historical Thriller

May 21, 2014
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Robert Olen Butler chose his protagonist wisely. Christopher Marlowe Cobb is a man of both intellect and physicality, of thought and action.

Book Review: “A Place in the Country” — A Heady Tour of W.G. Sebald Country

May 15, 2014
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It seems deeply appropriate that a superb book of essays by W.G. Sebald about his favorite writers should be his swan song.

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