'The Burglary' by Betty Medsger

Breaking and entering

The extent and nature of J. Edgar Hoover's surveillance of peaceful protesters were unknown until seven antiwar activists broke into the Media FBI office in 1971. The documents the burglars took provided the signposts to investigate Hoover's horrifying subversion of the Constitution.

Bob Levin

Feb 22, 2016 · Articles · 5 minute read

'Sex Is a Funny Word' by Silverberg and Smyth

Tackling the important issues around sex

Read Sex Is a Funny Word, no matter your age, whether or not you have children. Because Cory Silverberg’s radical and urgent message — sexuality with a side of social justice — is badly needed.

Anndee Hochman

Feb 16, 2016 · Articles · 5 minute read

Lennox Randon's 'Memoirs of a Dead White Chick'

Experiencing another life

Memoirs of a Dead White Chick is a lively, entertaining read. It considers issues around gender and race — and the darker side of America's history of them — without delving too deeply into their horrors.

Maria Thompson Corley

Feb 15, 2016 · Articles · 5 minute read

Robin Kirman’s 'Bradstreet Gate'

A tangent to murder

Bradstreet Gate is a promising first novel, a book first about uncertainty, but also about the difference between even bright students’ fantasies and “actual, multifarious reality,” as well as the odd, formative nature of friendships made on the threshold of adulthood.

Rick Soisson

Feb 11, 2016 · Articles · 3 minute read

'The State We're In: Maine Stories' by Ann Beattie

Modern relationships

John Updike surely would have approved of Ann Beattie's pitch-perfect dialogue and her descriptions of the things we all define our existences by in her first collection of short stories in a decade.

Rick Soisson

Jan 30, 2016 · Articles · 3 minute read

Johannes Brahms and John Wayne

Johnny Broom and Marion Morrison

Can a 19th-century music master and a 20th-century movie star have anything in common?

Tom Purdom

Jan 23, 2016 · Articles · 5 minute read

'Words Without Music' by Philip Glass

From plumber to the gilded prizes with a ‘musical idiot’

Philip Glass's great experiment in sound helped release serious music from the grip of the serialists and academics and Aaron Copland — and opened Glass to older forms and orchestration, longer melody, and other traditions he would explore for the rest of his working life.

Michael Woods

Dec 28, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read

Jean Shepherd: An appreciation

The Great American Christmas Story

As an American humorist and storyteller, Jean Shepherd is right up there with Will Rogers and Garrison Keillor. Jerry Seinfeld has said that Shep “really formed my entire comedic sensibility.” Jerry probably grew up like me, listening to Shep dispense nightly wisdom on WOR radio in New York.

Craig Peters

Dec 15, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read

'SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome' by Mary Beard

Rome redux

By presenting a sampling of her insights into the history of Roman civilization in a spirited, learned, and accessible manner, Mary Beard's lecture was not just a good advertisement for and introduction to her long and massive study, it was good performance art.

Richard da Silva

Nov 15, 2015 · Articles · 3 minute read

Patrick J. Kennedy's 'A Common Struggle'

Code of silence, circle of shame

By speaking out and speaking up about mental illness and alcoholism in families, Patrick J. Kennedy is helping those of us who still feel shame, yet live with the fear of what these conditions will do to future generations if we keep silent.

Marge Murray

Oct 25, 2015 · Articles · 5 minute read