Books

Book Review: “The Brilliant Abyss” — Our Imperiled Oceans

June 23, 2021
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Helen Scales is a self-described nerd who studies the ocean as an enthusiast as well as a scientist.

Book Review: “Canceling Comedians While the World Burns” — The Case for Comediansplaining

June 22, 2021
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‘Lived experience’ doesn’t automatically confer moral or political insight, argues social critic Ben Burgis, but if we can make others laugh at that assumption we might be getting somewhere.

Book Review: “Brut: Writings on Art & Artists” — Proceed with Caution, But Proceed

June 21, 2021
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These are not persuasive essays; rather, they are thought-provoking juxtapositions of facts, observations, and speculations — with a teleology.

Book Review: The Woman Behind “All-of-a-Kind Family” — A Remarkable Legacy

June 17, 2021
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Biographer June Cummins considers the first All-of-a-Kind Family book, published in 1951, as groundbreaking and Sydney Taylor as “one of the first writers of multicultural literature for children.”

Visual Arts Interview: The Colonial Elephant in the Room — Talking with Barnaby Phillips, author of “Loot: Britain and The Benin Bronzes”

June 16, 2021
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Last week, just a month after the publication of Loot in the US, the Met in New York announced that it was returning two Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.

Book Review: “What You Can See From Here” – Hopefully Romantic

June 13, 2021
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There is enough candor and humor, along with a handful of bracingly moody characters, to make Mariana Leky’s vision of perpetual love compelling.

Book Review: “Broadway Goes to War — American Theater during World War II”

June 13, 2021
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For many dramatists, the label of ‘leftism’ was not pejorative: it was about fighting for human decency and political reform.

Book Review: “Seeing Sideways” — Parenting on the Edge

June 11, 2021
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Those who have followed Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh’s career over the past three decades are the target audience for this memoir. But she is a good enough writer to interest people who may never have listened to her music.

Book Review: “Refugee: A Memoir” — A Powerful Story of the Plight of Millions

June 11, 2021
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Refugee: A Memoir was not written to entertain but to outrage and activate.

Book Review: “Hard Like Water” — The Revolution Will Be Eroticized

June 10, 2021
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There is no gainsaying that Hard Like Water is, in English, an important book, if only because of its refreshingly sensual vision of the appeal of the Cultural Revolution.

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