Books
393 results
Page 30
Jonathan Kozol's 'The Theft of Memory'
Tackling the memoir
For Jonathan Kozol, summoning up vivid memories as he wrote a memoir of his father's battle with Alzheimer's was mostly a pleasant process. It kept his father, as well as his mother, alive for him after their deaths. But the last few months of concluding the book were hard and painful, he said, because it meant saying good-bye to his parents all over again.
Articles
5 minute read
Renee Blitz's 'Poet of Transparency'
Kafka in the hot tub
Renee Blitz's creations — stories? feuilletons? a unit? — lack what we usually expect of prose, or poetry, or even the customary avant-garde.
Jonathan Gottschall’s 'Professor in the Cage'
Trading in dry erase markers for arm bars
Not all men of letters turning 40 buy sports cars.
Articles
4 minute read
'A Pleasure and a Calling' by Phil Hogan
Is it possible to stalk everybody?
Is a slow-motion thriller possible? Is there such a creature as an omni-stalker? Phil Hogan tackles these questions in his 2015 release.
Articles
3 minute read
Enough with the adultery plots
After a life spent reading about every possible variation on the theme of people attempting to escape the bonds of holy matrimony, I’ve come to the point that whenever a book starts to turn into Yet Another Adultery Novel, I close it, return it to the library, and try again.
Articles
3 minute read
Dennis Lehane’s ‘World Gone By’
The luck of the Irish versus very bad karma
Will your evil itself kill you, or the evil milieu you have chosen — or will you skate? Dennis Lehane packs a Russian novel's worth of plot and meditations on morality into his newest.
Articles
3 minute read
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'The Outsider: Albert M. Greenfield' by Dan Rottenberg
An outsider and a visionary
Rottenberg's biography of Albert M. Greenfield paints an inspiring picture of a man who not only overcame his immigrant roots, but also targeted the anti-Semitism of the Protestant establishment. It does not, however, provide a useful analysis of the tycoon's visionary leadership.
Articles
3 minute read
George V. Higgins: An appreciation
I’ll put three books by the late George V. Higgins up against any three books written by anybody since Hemingway or Faulkner — maybe everybody from Mailer on.
Articles
4 minute read
Freeman Dyson's 'Dreams of Earth and Sky'
The iconoclastic generalist
As a scientist who has wrestled firsthand with the moral quandaries of mass destruction and total war, Dyson is quite aware of the seemingly intransigent problems that continue to plague humanity. But he's confident that science, free inquiry, and democracy will yet allow the better angels of human nature to prevail and prosper.
Articles
4 minute read
Steven Pinker’s 'Sense of Style'
It's not that hard, people
Steven Pinker’s explication of the underlying sense of English grammar and advocacy of clear prose make his Sense of Style a must-read for anyone who wants to be a better writer.
Articles
3 minute read