Books

Book Review: “This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s “Kid A”” — An Enduring Soundtrack for our Malaise

December 24, 2020
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Steven Hyden’s ,/em>This Isn’t Happening, a book-length appreciation of Radiohead and Kid A is one of the best books I read all year.

Book Review: “This Is Bop” — A Biography of Jon Hendricks, Master of Vocalese

December 22, 2020
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This biography provides a solid look at Jon Hendricks’s life and career; a well-rounded picture that is neither a hagiography nor a hatchet job.

Book Review: Colum McCann’s “Apeirogon” — Showing a Path Forward

December 21, 2020
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Although some of Apeirogon is painful, this novel can inspire you to think differently and even to act, which is surely welcome after this horrible year in which we have all felt so helpless.

Arts Feature: Recommended Books, 2020

December 20, 2020
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An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.

Book Review: Anahid Nersessian’s “Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse” — More like a Quarrel

December 17, 2020
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Anahid Nersessian claims that her book is a kind of love story between her and Keats’ odes. But it turns out we have to take her word for that. Too often this study comes off like an acrimonious couple’s counseling session.

Book Review: “Buy Me Boston, Volume 2” — Celebration of Advertisements Past

December 16, 2020
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Flipping through this volume will help readers understand just how much the internet and consumer technology has changed the world of arts and culture.

Poetry Review: “Field Music” — Lyrical Visions of Hardscrabble Vermont

December 16, 2020
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The voice in Field Music is disciplined, its cagey earthiness unfailingly engaging our attention.

Poetry Review: Paul Celan — The Anguish of Writing in a “Damaged” Tongue

December 9, 2020
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Poet Paul Celan has come to embody in person and in print the agonies of a half century of European culture.

Book Review: The Books of András Koerner — Acts of Wondrous Remembrance

December 7, 2020
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Writer András Koerner has dedicated himself, lovingly and brilliantly, to assiduously reconstruct the lives of ordinary Jews in Hungary before the Shoah.

Book Review: “From Left to Right” — The Story of Holocaust Historian Lucy S. Dawidowicz

December 7, 2020
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This biography of Lucy S. Dawidowicz performs the invaluable function of gathering relevant documents and drafting a narrative that rescues a fascinating historian from oblivion. But it does not add much to the history of the New York intellectuals.

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