Review

Book Review: “Passion” Project — Pedro Almodóvar as Consummate Auteur

April 16, 2025
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Though lapsing at times into hagiography and muddled synopsizing, James Miller’s study of filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is a bracing reminder of the greatness and ever-evolving genius of this world-class artist.

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Book Review: “Jim” — An Inspiring Homage to Huckleberry Finn’s Black Comrade

April 15, 2025
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The fact that readers have dismissed Jim as a fool or have misunderstood Mark Twain’s intent in Huckleberry Finn reflects on our limitations.

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Book Review: Clearing the Sill of the World — Thoughts on Ellen Wilbur’s Stories

April 15, 2025
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With visionary daring, Elllen Wilbur leads us into unexpected corners, then transcends them profoundly and beyond expectation. Such stories are more than “moral fictions.” They are soul-shakers.

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Classical Music Album Review: Brahms & Schumann and Mozart & Bruch

April 14, 2025
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It is serendipitous that James Ehnes added Brahms’ two viola sonatas to his repertoire; Patrick Messina, Lise Berthaud, and Fabrizio Chiovetta’s new recording of Bruch’s “8 Pieces for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano” serves the piece admirably.

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Television Review: “North of North” — Another Nice Canadian Sitcom, Eh?

April 14, 2025
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Given the current state of the world, we need more shows that not only entertain, but reflect the importance of community. And, if those programs accurately portray a close-knit group of people that has been misrepresented, all the better.

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YA Book Review: “The Summer I Ate the Rich” — A Limited Menu

April 13, 2025
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Despite its title, this YA novel would be best described as an exercise in magic realist satire. Those looking for heaping helpings of the affluent will be disappointed.

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Classical Music Album Reviews: “Duke Bluebeard’s Castle” and Jean-Yves Thibaudet plays Khachaturian

April 13, 2025
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A conspicuously inviting account of Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, and a welcome surprise: Aram Khachaturian actually wrote a pretty good piano concerto.

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Album Review: Jason Isbell’s Ruminative “Foxes in the Snow”

April 12, 2025
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One thing, among others, that sets Jason Isbell apart from his country scene contemporaries is that he isn’t afraid to break the all-American code of manly stoicism.

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Translation Spotlight: The Philosopher on the Threshold

April 11, 2025
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In three books of oblique self-reflection Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben explores and exposes the artistic and intellectual thresholds that have been central to his life and to the life of his mind.

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Book Review: “Your Steps on the Stairs” — The Power of Waiting

April 11, 2025
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Initially, Antonio Muñoz Molina’s resonant novel seems to be the study of the moods and challenges of a man waiting for the only person who gives his life meaning.

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