Books
An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.
Samuel Adams, a superb political organizer who helped turn the Boston Massacre into a cause célèbre, was more conservative than modern admirers, including biographer Stacy Schiff, want to admit.
Poet and professor Jed Rasula makes the case for The Waste Land‘s lasting revolutionary impact in his engaging and insightful, if occasionally discursive, study.
It’s hard to imagine anyone producing a more complete and authoritative biography of baritone sax player Pepper Adams.
As befits an official biography, Silver and Greenwald approach their subject with decorum and respect: they neither hide nor emphasize potentially controversial elements, carefully outlining the sources of money in Isabella’s family and the old Boston Brahmin fortune of her devoted husband.
In this valuable book, Adrienne Buller assesses the efficacy of leading market-based efforts to address climate change and nature loss and contends that they have largely failed.
It’s tempting to frame these books as opposing sides in an argument, Old School Establishment vs. Progressive Left. They are more like parallel universes; their opinions and even their terms rarely converge.
An homage to Grace Paley, one of the great American writers of the 20th century.
The poems in this remarkable collection lead us, as all good literature should do, after all the appearances and misdirections, feints and antic dispositions, to nothing but ourselves.
Book Review: A Beautiful Brick in the Wall — Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools
This is an indispensable study for anyone — including scholars, policy makers, and educators — who yearns to better understand how race and culture play out in a rarefied suburban milieu.
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