Books
In her second novel, Aminatta Forna gives us a moving story of the toll that the terrible civil war in Sierra Leone has taken and is still taking, years after it supposedly ended.
Read MoreGerman author Ernst Weiss’s nightmarish vision of science gone mad in his 1931 novel Georg Letham is not rote Freudian; it is firmly in the social critique/ apocalyptic Darwinian mode.
Read MoreBare chested and sweating up a storm, singer Gavin Creel as Prometheus makes for a rock rebel with lots of snarly attitude, defying Zeus’s tyranny by flexing his abs.
In The Necessity of Theater, author Paul Woodruff makes way for wisdom as theater’s final gift. In his view, theater’s wisdom lies in its use of the mask, and that mask is the sine qua non of meaning. The mask must conceal, if only to reveal. The Necessity of Theater: The Art of Watching…
Read MoreMoondogs comes of as an entirely fun jaunt through a foreign land that nevertheless hoped to do a bit more. Still, the promise of Alexander Yates’s first novel more than justifies picking up his second, even if it lacks villains, superheroes, and evil green roosters. Moondogs by Alexander Yates. Doubleday, 352 pages, $25.95. By Tommy…
Read MoreNo new edition of Bishop’s poetry, which she created with such loving-care and sent to publishers with such restraint, not to say stinginess, could advance her current reputation. She is America’s flagship, 20th-century poet, leaving the straight men (Eliot, Frost, Stevens, and Lowell) in her wake. (Expect a Bishop backlash by 2020.) Yet many poetry…
Read MoreNo one is safe in the world of Edward Gorey: “From Number Nine, Penwiper Mews, There is really abominable news:/ They’ve discovered a head/ In the box for the bread, / But nobody seems to know whose.” Elegant Enigmas: The Art of Edward Gorey (1925–2000) will be at the Boston Athenaeum (10 1/2 Beacon St.…
Read MoreNorman Shapiro’s enthusiasm as a translator is felt not only in the versions themselves but also in his introduction and notes. He relishes finding equivalents for Jacques Prévert’s rhyming, which induces him to take some justifiable liberties in regard to the original. The volume is a true labor of love. Préversities: A Jacques Prévert Sampler…
Read MoreBoomers: 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.…
Read MoreThese 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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