Books

Short Fuse Fiction: Boomer — part 1

February 14, 2011
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Boomers: part 1 By Harvey Blume. ** He lay there watching names scroll by in his head. Credits on screen, white on black background. Last Waltz Boomers Class Reunion Names. He thinks of names of dogs he had known, also cats, goats, ex-lovers. Most things ex by now, most everything ex. Ex-bladder control. Ex-cardiac tissue.…

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Book Review: Two Old Men Singing of Wisdom

February 8, 2011
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These novels by the young, Indian writers Natacha Appanah, who identifies herself as French-Mauritian, and Rana Dasgupta take the form of memoirs of old men who look back on their lives, searching for the truth and the peace that comes with an understanding of the past. The Last Brother by Natacha Appanah. Translated from the…

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Fuse Book Review: Why Jazz? How Now?

January 31, 2011
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People who love jazz should read jazz history books periodically, and Kevin Whitehead, jazz critic on NPR’s “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross, has done a great service in giving us a What, Who, Where, and When book with insight and ingenuity. Why Jazz?: A Concise Guide by Kevin Whitehead. Oxford University Press, 136 pp. of…

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Culture Review: At MIT, an exhilarating example of 21st-century, multi-media collaboration

January 24, 2011
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It would have been easy to make an entire season out of the ideas the Boston Chamber Music Society compressed into one afternoon; as it is, the wealth of material had the audience buzzing during the two intermissions. Some found the multi-media presentation too much of a good thing. I found it exhilarating and challenging…

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Critical Homage: Wilfrid Sheed — Farewell, Bittersweet Critic

January 23, 2011
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Sensing the lonely importance of your review, you may lapse into muddleheaded kindness and a groping for a middle position that doesn’t exist. When this happens, no bribe has changed hands, no paper crown for Mr. Nice; you have sold out simply to your own weakness and the fundamental thinness of your vocation. — Wilfrid…

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Book Review: A Brilliantly Phantasmagorical “Calendar of Regrets”

January 17, 2011
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A novel of echoes, reflections (sometimes inverted), and criss-crossing lines, Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets locates nodes of intersection, spotlights the forgotten, and magnifies the unnoticed. Calendar of Regrets by Lance Olsen. Fiction Collective, 456 pages, $22. By Vincent Czyz Lance Olsen’s Calendar of Regrets had me from the opening scene: a vividly imagined and…

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Arts Commentary: With Friends Like These — The New York Times Explains Why Criticism Matters

January 13, 2011
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The important question the NYTBR Editors fail to ask is whether the traditional definition and values of literary criticism will survive in an age of ebooks and iPads. Is there a primal appetite for criticism? (Edith Wharton says there is, and I believe her.) How will the Internet shape our innate desire to compare, judge,…

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Fuse Interview: Helen Epstein Interviews Herself — Joe Papp Biography Goes Electronic

January 13, 2011
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Author and Arts Fuse Contributor Helen Epstein explains why she decided to take her 1994 biography Joe Papp: An American Life and convert it into an eBook—given what may be the precarious future for the traditional book, she “wanted to save it for posterity.” By Helen Epstein. AF: Joe Papp died in 1991. Why publish…

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Fuse Commentary: What Survives — The Mad Rush to Digitization

January 10, 2011
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The mad rush to digitization brings up another host of new issues. Unlike a printed book, digital media requires a change of technologies—computers, software, imaging—to interpret the information. Will digitization serve the long-term interests of knowledge as well as the media it is replacing? It’s unlikely. By Peter Walsh. When we look back from, say,…

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Book Review: Remembrance of Lebanon Past (Updated With Interview)

January 6, 2011
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This first novel from Arab-American writer Thérèse Soukar Chehade, who teaches English Language Education at a school in Amherst, Massachusetts, turns out to be a thoughtful family portrait that deals subtly with the variegated experiences of being outsiders in a strange land and the pulls of loss, memory, and desire. Loom by Thérèse Soukar Chehade.…

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