Books

Book Review: “An Unnecessary Woman” — A Memorable Story of Redemption

February 5, 2014
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When the septuagenarian protagonist of this novel finally gets out of her claustrophobic apartment, everything changes.

Book Review: “The Devil I Know” — A Brilliant Satire of Ireland’s Boom and Bust

February 3, 2014
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Claire Kilroy’s dark and fantastical comedy “The Devil I Know” nails the greed and rampaging ambition of the corrupt avatars of “the new Ireland” — developers, bankers, and government pooh-bahs.

Book Review: Director Edgar G. Ulmer — Hollywood’s Master of the Eclectic Led a Doozy of a Life

February 2, 2014
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This is an invaluable volume that can and should be read in conjunction with one’s own Ulmer movie marathon.

Book Review: “The Elixir of Immortality” — A Fabulous Ride Through European History

February 1, 2014
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Love stories, treachery, brilliant plans, history itself gone awry – it’s all here in inspiring abundance in this fabulous novel, where the Spinozas make their way through hundreds of years of European history.

Book Review: The Poetry of Pierre Reverdy — The Search for Purity

January 31, 2014
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Pierre Reverdy’s poetry that is suspicious of the deceiving beauty of words, hence its pared-down, elemental, stylistic qualities.

Book Review: Richard Powers’s Urgent “Orfeo” — Can Art Save Us?

January 27, 2014
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As with any Richard Powers novel, when you finish “Orfeo” you will have no doubt you are alive, awake, and likely ready to start over at page one.

Fuse Book Review: “My Life in Middlemarch” — Expanding the Boundaries of Memoir

January 24, 2014
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I don’t share Rebecca Mead’s awe for “Middlemarch,” but I share her enthusiasm for stretching the envelope of memoir.

Book Review: The Unwavering Gaze — Fabritius and Donna Tartt’s “The Goldfinch”

January 23, 2014
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In Donna Tartt’s much-lauded third novel, Fabritius’ painting “The Goldfinch” and the fleeting nature of, well, everything comes together for a brief and shining moment.

Book Review: Art Historian Bernard Berenson — Reinvention as the American Dream

January 19, 2014
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Cohen devotes little space to Bernard Berenson’s art historical methodology, now largely superseded by modern approaches. She relates Berenson’s less admirable qualities without judging them.

Fuse Book Review: “Country of Ash” — Another Essential Holocaust Memoir

January 16, 2014
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We become increasingly aware that we are in the mind of a doctor who has taught himself to observe carefully, who has an amazingly strong will to survive, and who chooses not to waste precious time and energy on anger or revenge.

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