Books
Jack Kerouac’s best work is often driven by a hunger for spiritual nourishment: the soul food his protagonists occasionally find in friendships, in jazz, in oceanic moments of oneness.
“Archive” sprung from Sofia Coppola’s desire to record what her mind’s organized chaos says about her and her films.
These essays and poems present incarcerated men and women as nothing more or less than our fellow humans.
Werner Herzog likes the odds in “Every Man for Himself and God Against All.”
Cockeyed anecdotes roam merrily through a satiric tale set in an East Germany that’s too larky to be oppressive.
Valerie Duff’s polished style is thoughtful and observant, her fluent voice compressed and controlled. She constructs meticulous lines with (to borrow one of her phrases from these pages) a “stonecutter’s precision.”
These picture books explore music history and an avant-garde composer who challenged convention.
“The book in many ways is a defense of liberalism. It’s a defense of the idea that that’s really what the government should do in a democracy. The liberal consensus is what happens when you actually let people vote.”
I’m happy to add the brujas of “A Tall Dark Magic” to my own personal spell book featuring the names of the witches I love.
Book Review: “American Purgatory” — Prison as a Form of Social Control
“American Purgatory” is the sort of book reactionary politicians and organizations are trying to ban. It’s full of evidence that many of the attitudes and conditions prevalent in this country from its founding were racist, bigoted, even genocidal.
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