Books

Poetry Review: “Winter Recipes From the Collective” — Louise Glück’s Cold Comfort

December 21, 2021
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The poems in Winter Recipes from the Collective are about bearing with life in a barren place; they do the kind of singing Bertolt Brecht said was necessary when dealing with “the dark times.”

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Book Review: “Amoralman: A True Story and Other Lies” — A Young Magician Turns to a Life of Crime

December 18, 2021
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Magic is a performative pursuit as demanding as high-wire acrobatics — yet a vocation lacking respect, perhaps for good reason.

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Author Interview: Robert A. Gross on “The Transcendentalists and Their World”

December 10, 2021
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“Concord was actually surprisingly representative of Massachusetts, New England, and maybe even the North in the 19th century. In learning about Concord, you learn about the making of modern America.”

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Book Review: “Hot Maroc” — A Moroccan Walter Mitty as Internet Troll

December 8, 2021
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Hot Maroc is more of a three-ring circus than a drama, with a high-wire act at one end, tigers and elephants at the other, and scurrying clowns in the middle.

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Book Review: “The Last Bookseller” — A Breezy Memoir of Life in the Rare Book Trade

December 8, 2021
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The arrival of the internet adds a sour-grapes ending to an otherwise fairly compelling narrative.

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Children’s Book Review: Girls Rule! And Other Ways to Inspire Kids This Holiday Season

December 7, 2021
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Some splendid, new (and newish) books that are sure to inspire young children.

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Book Review: “Milk Fed” — The Glory of the Zaftig

December 1, 2021
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For all the sensual lushness of Melissa Broder’s writing, that hard center remains, one where appetite invites awareness, bringing with it pain as well as satiety.

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Poetry Review: Writer Alain Mabanckou — Taking Life Both to Heart and in Stride

November 30, 2021
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Take a dive into any of Alain Mabanckou’s works in English — and definitely score a copy of the new translation, As Long As Trees Take Root In the Earth, beautifully crafted and bound. Vive la Poesie!

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Book Review: “Punch Me Up to the Gods” — Stories That Need to be Told

November 30, 2021
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A stunning indictment of homophobia, racism, and toxic masculinity, particularly among African Americans, Punch Me Up to the Gods holds a mirror up to America, a mirror before which many of us will not want to linger.

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Poetry Reviews: Paul Muldoon and Others

November 27, 2021
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Paul Muldoon is anxious to file dispatches from the front lines of Our Lives Now. That is one of the characteristics that separates him from most other poets writing today.

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