On Blindness
I first became aware that I was losing my eyesight when I was in Nicaragua, helping to celebrate the Sandinistas.
SCENE 7: THE TRAGIC NEED FOR RESPECT
Inspired by literary journalism made famous by Capote’s In Cold Blood, this award-winning book project is entitled “Little Murderers: Character Studies of Ten Children That Kill”.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Review
Unsung heroes have become a common theme for African-American literature and movies in the modern age. The Help, Hidden Figures and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks focus on the black struggle and unsung women who helped changed the world.
I'm Nobody and So Are You: A review of The Life and Poetry of Emily Dickinson at the Morgan Library Museum
When I was thirteen years old, I hated Emily Dickinson. A great English teacher named Neil Selden introduced me to two of her poems: "I'm nobody. Who are you?" and "Hope is the thing with feathers."
On Mary Gaitskill’s Somebody With a Little Hammer
Gaitskill’s writing is surprisingly tender but always on point and never misses a beat.
Thunder and Sunshine in One Body Reviewed
Luciann Berrios' debut collection bursts out from "under the shadow of a memory," offering not simply poems but chronicles of movement, forward and backward in time.
The Revolution Where You Live: Stories From A 12,000 Mile Journey Through A New America
Sarah Van Gelder reminds me of myself when she starts her book, The Revolution Where You Live: Stories From A 12,000 Mile Journey Through A New America.
Just Two Girls in the World:
Swing Time, the fifth novel from Zadie Smith, is a novel about little girls and the women they become; it’s about racial and class divides, but more importantly, friendship. Smith tackles big, complicated themes in this work
The Outlaw Bible of American Art Reviewed
Like that other Bible, the Holy one, if you suspend your disbelief (in the banality of modern art) you can open this book to any page and find inspiration. As for being ‘Outlaw,’ now that our elites are illiterate, how long before ‘outlaw book’ is a redundancy?
Living Quarters review
In order to gain a sense of order and existential clarity, people often look for comfort and certainty by putting themselves in exotic or geographical distances. Traveling, for example, is one of those activities that cultivates and educates, and it seems that everyone wants to do it.
“The Light Within”
It seems that the real story of the modern and contemporary culture (arts and letters) in Iran starts somewhere in the second decade of the 20th century, more precisely in 1925 when Reza Khan took over the royal throne from the ancient Ahmad Shah of the Qadjar dynasty.
Review of The Wangs vs. the World by Jade Chang
ome of the funniest moments in Jade Chang’s first novel, The Wangs vs. the World, are the offhand ones, such as when the Chinese-American family named in the title realizes they don’t know the name of the woman who raised most of them.
Eileen Myles: I Must Be Living Twice
Eileen Myles’s 2016 collection of new and selected poems, I Must Be Living Twice is an
absolute must-read—and no, it’s not just for fans of her work, but for poetry lovers everywhere.
Truth Beneath the Artifice of Hollywood:
Kevin Jack McEnroe’s 2015 novel, Our Town, is an impressive debut; it is beautifully written and heartfelt. It is also a page-turner, but not at all a potboiler. There is tremendous substance and heart underneath the beautiful prose
The Amazing “True” Story of a Teenage Single Mom
Originally published in 1998, Katherine Arnoldi’s The Amazing “True” Story of a Teenage Single Mom is packaged and blurbed in a manner that reflects the “Wham! Pow! Comics Aren’t For Kids Anymore” narrative that still afflicted comics at the time.
Risk Game Reviewed
This book is a fine read. What one mighthave thought would have been a trip through real estate jargon or the behemoth ego of a self made bazillionaire and highly auccesful multi-tasker, is instead a captivating and at times emotionally wrenching journey through the diverse interests of an extraordinary life.
Review of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
Madeleine Thien’s epic third novel, Do Not Say We Have Nothing, set in 2016, is framed by the search for a missing person, Ai-ming, a young woman who came from China to stay with the Chinese-Canadian narrator, Marie, and her mother in Vancouver in 1990, when Marie was eleven years old.
Francis Greenburger Reviewed
A primary interest of Francis Greenburger is OMI, the 180 acre sculpture park and international art center in Columbia County, NY. I live nearby and attend many wonderful events there.
Wendy Brown Reviewed
Wendy Brown is a political science professor at University of California Berkeley, a school whose name conjures memories of the Free Speech movement of the 60s.