Books
Readers should not be put off by the title, for this is a splendid novel, interesting in the risks it takes, in its ambition and scope—a book that deserves to be savored and discussed. Rat by Fernanda Eberstadt, Knopf, 304 pages, $25.95 Reviewed by Roberta Silman They have always been with us, those “casual offspring,”…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx I have neglected to point out the recent postings at my other gig, the online feature World Books at BBC/PRI’s The World. I just completed my April podcast, a departure for the series because I focus on a classic American author rather than a writer in translation. But this April 21st marks…
Read MoreBy Harvey Blume The major problem with these treatments of Timothy Leary and Daniel Ellsberg is that they portray their main characters as if there was no possible resonance between them, as if they came from different eras. The Harvard Psychedelic Club, by Don Lattin, HarperOne, 256 pages, $24.99. The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel…
Read MoreBy Bill Marx Critic Debra Cash’s excellent writings on dance can be found on The Arts Fuse. She has new book of poetry out, timed perfectly for the upcoming Jewish holiday. The lyrics in the volume Who Knows One are “based on stories, language, and associations connected to the Passover Haggadah.” Those who have admired…
Read MoreAlthough the memoir has been called luminous, wise, humble, piercing, and all sorts of other laudatory adjectives, it is, nevertheless, not an easy book to read because you keep wondering how you would manage in this situation. Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt, Ecco Press, 166 pages, $21.00 Reviewed by Roberta Silman At the end of…
Read MoreArtists should “no longer huddle in the confines of a painted box set” but instead join together to “find visible and audible expression for the tempo and psychology of our time” and dramatize “the search of the average American today for knowledge about his country and his world.” – Hallie Flanagan, Federal Theatre Project Stick…
Read MoreAmerican author Robert Stone is attuned to the havoc latent in masculine pride and to the hostility likely to break out for no particular reason between males of our species. Fun With Problems: Stories by Robert Stone, Hougton Mifflin Harcourt, 195 pages, $24 Reviewed by Harvey Blume Though one of our prose masters, Robert Stone…
Read Moreby Bill Marx On his way to the Cologne literature festival earlier this week, dissident Chinese writer Liao Yiwu was escorted off the plane by the Chinese authorities and handed over to the police for interrogation. He has sent an open letter to the world, available in English, asking for help.
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Music Commentary: New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest versus French Quarter Fest