Roberta Silman

Book Review: Elizabeth Graver’s “Kantika” — A Vibrant Portrait of Bravery

April 13, 2023
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Kantika is Elizabeth Graver’s poignant homage to her grandmother, but it is also a testament to her talent as a storyteller, to make a narrative so believable and compelling and, indeed, sometimes funny, just as it is in life.

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Book Feature: An Excerpt From Roberta Silman’s “Summer Lightning”

March 9, 2023
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As Spring approaches, a treat. An excerpt from Summer Lightning, the latest novel by Arts Fuse critic Roberta Silman. It is a book that attempts to convey happiness.

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Book Review: “All Sorts of Lives” — Katherine Mansfield, A Magician With Words

March 6, 2023
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We can only wonder what Katherine Mansfield might have given us had she lived a normal life span, yet we should cherish what we have, as Claire Harman has done so beautifully.

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Book Review: Andrea Barrett’s Magical “Natural History”

February 11, 2023
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Although science is Andrea Barrett’s springboard, she is writing fiction about the people who do scientific research and teach it: memorable people who have hearts and secrets and feelings and hopes and dreams and goals.

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Arts Feature: Recommended Books, 2022

December 27, 2022
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An eclectic round-up of the favorite books of the year from our critics.

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Literary Appreciation: Grace Paley and the Swiveling Light of Truth

December 13, 2022
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An homage to Grace Paley, one of the great American writers of the 20th century.

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Book Review: Irish Author Claire Keegan Hits Her Stride

November 4, 2022
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In Claire Keegan’s fiction, each sentence matters and each, sometimes very ordinary, action has real consequences.

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Book Review: Colette’s “Chéri” and “The End of Chéri” — Tales of Love and Morality

September 19, 2022
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A superb new translation in one volume of the two Chéri novellas, regarded as Colette’s masterwork.

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Book Appreciation: A.B. Yehoshua’s “Mr. Mani” — A Great Work of Fiction

July 7, 2022
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A.B. Yehoshua was anything but a provincial Israeli writer. He was literary giant whose imaginative gift was so striking and diverse that you never knew what he would do next.

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Book Review: “Letters to Camondo” — An Essential Testament to Jewish Memory and History

February 1, 2022
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This is an extraordinarily beautiful book, its present tense prose creating “an atmosphere of literature,” in Virginia Woolf’s words, its honest probing as illuminating as anything you will read about what it means to be Jewish.

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