Books
Jimi’s sister and a Newton-based Hendrix scholar dig into the archives and come up with a coffee table book that celebrates the rock icon.
In this episode of the podcast, Elizabeth Howard talks to poets Diane Alters and Edward Hirsch about the ways we think about grief, publicly and privately.
What is literature if it doesn’t kick you in the ass every now and then and get you to act? Maybe that’s what the Nobel committee thought when it awarded Annie Ernaux this year’s Literature Prize.
This is a grim and uncomfortable book to read because it forces us to contemplate each small poem separately and then take them all together, a hard but necessary exercise.
“It’s easy to see why we have such a lousy life and such great literature.”
Charlie’s Good Tonight does a fine job of illuminating Charlie Watts’ personality and paying homage to the drummer’s admirable legacy.
Underlying all of these pieces is the sensibility of the émigrée, the person who has had to reinterpret everything in her life.
A funny, bittersweet novel by British writer Jonathan Coe portrays the great American film director Billy Wilder on the downside of his career

Translator Interview: John Taylor on Philippe Jaccottet
“We have entered an age of unequivocal partisan discourse, of linguistic robotization, of tiny symbols standing for complex emotions. In total contrast to this, Philippe Jaccottet’s writing constantly shows nuance, attentiveness, perseverance, circumspection, and a genuine quest for essential truths.”
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