Friday, March 27 2009
Panic! The Story of Modern Financial Insanity
In a sense, panic is an imprecise word to describe the emotion of financial crashes; paranoia better suits.
Wednesday, March 25 2009
Last Lion by Peter S. Canellos
If you want a peek inside America's royal family, this is a must-read, with details that only Boston Globe reporters could know.
Friday, March 6 2009
Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1964 by Susan Sontag
Sontag's journals suggest that the self is a conditional and transitory creation; elusive and slippery as an artful lover who wants to be a writer.
Thursday, February 26 2009
Blind Man with a Pistol: Ishmael Reed’s Misguided Pow-Wow
Anyone who has witnessed affirmative action policies in play can tell you that bad apples are chosen to fulfill a quota, not unlike a cop who harasses every citizen who bears a vague resemblance to a wanted suspect.
Friday, December 19 2008
Best Food Writing 2008, ed. Holly Hughes
Molecular gastronomy? Check. Locavores? Check. Post-Katrina restaurant recovery? Cloned meat? Paeans to the wonders of pig? Check, check, check.
Tuesday, December 16 2008
The Best of Sexology, ed. Craig Yoe
In1933 Gernsback published a pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-scientific magazine devoted to sex and all its mysteries, vagaries, varieties -- not to mention all its anxieties.
Tuesday, December 2 2008
The Letters of Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg was hyperaware of the frequent charge that Beat poetry was little more than improvised mumbo jumbo baked from jazz records and marijuana smoke.
Tuesday, November 11 2008
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
Of the many historic changes signaled by Barack Obama's election, the defeat of divide-and-conquer politicking is among the most profound -- even if this demise is temporary.
Wednesday, October 15 2008
Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story
Lee Atwater is remembered as brilliant or shameful, effective or destructive, his life part American Dream, part horror movie.
Mixing It Up by Ishamel Reed
Reed's viewpoint is that of the seditionist, but as is the nature of such things, such fixation can narrow one's perspective.
