Books
387 results
Page 37
Helga Weiss's Holocaust diary
A new generation confronts the Holocaust
As Holocaust survivors and perpetrators die off, will that most horrifying human experience fade from memory? As a child of Holocaust victims, I can attest that the opposite is true: What the traumatized survivors wish to forget, their children are even more determined to confront.
Articles
4 minute read
"This Wild Joy': Bill Van Buskirk's poetry
Adam without Eden
Bill Van Buskirk's verse collection is a powerfully engaging book by a poet whose work depicts the hard pains and joys of living, and who deserves wider recognition.
This Wild Joy That Thrills Outside the Law. Poems by Bill Van Buskirk. Infinity Publishing, 2010. 100 pages; $9.95. www.amazon.com.
Articles
5 minute read
China's Nobel laureate, reconsidered
The unbearable unreadability of a Nobel Prize-winning novel
The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Mo Yan has unleashed patriotic celebrations in China. Which leaves just one question: Has anyone actually read his novel?
Articles
4 minute read
D'Annunzio's "Notturno,' rediscovered
The Italian patient
Yale University Press and Margellos World Republic of Letters Books have rescued yet another forgotten reputation. Gabriele D'Annunzio's Notturno, painstakingly written as he recovered from war wounds, is neither novel nor non-fiction memoir; instead, it's a prose poem.
Articles
3 minute read
My problem with Junot Diaz's 'Oscar Wao'
Power of the pen, or: This author could destroy my life's work
I've spent decades arguing that Americans must expand their literary horizons beyond our narrow shores. So I was pleased by the honors bestowed upon Oscar Wao, by the Dominican novelist Junot Diaz. Then I had the misfortune of actually reading this mindless book.
Articles
5 minute read
Schwarzenegger's "Total Recall'
Buy my book or I'll kill you, or: The Terminator's promotional tour
Move over, Marcel Proust. The Terminator's memories are bigger, badder and surely more shameless than anything you conjured up by biting into a cookie.
Articles
2 minute read
Kingsley Amis's "The Old Devils'
Sympathy for reactionaries (including the author)
The Old Devils is a powerful example of a good writer's ability to render sympathetic those who seem nothing like us and who, if made flesh, would quite possibly loathe us. That goes for its misogynistic author, too.
Articles
5 minute read
Dinesh D'Souza's '2016: Obama's America'
The roots of Dinesh D'Souza's rage
Dinesh D'Souza's 2016: Obama's America poses as a documentary but is a cynically over-the-top appeal to the lunatic fringe that sees Barack Obama as the fount of all evil and the antithesis of American values. Go for the laughs; this presidential campaign could sure use a few.
Articles
7 minute read
"The Rotation': Baseball's ups and downs
The greatest baseball team ever assembled (but only on paper, unfortunately)
In my youth, Philadelphia baseball fans took losing for granted, so we found other attractions in the game. Today they take winning for granted— a dangerous delusion, as we've seen this year.
Articles
6 minute read
Frances Diem Vardamis's 'Time Running Out'
Apocalypse at the top of the world
Frances Diem Vardamis's Time Running Out, the latest installment of her Yannis Lavonis detective series, carries her hero to the top of the world for a confrontation with a breed of Christian apocalypticists spawned by the new Russia. Vardamis is a shrewd observer of the contemporary scene with a sharp eye for character and detail, and her protagonist is worth caring about.
Articles
7 minute read