Writing in a conversational and engaging style, Peter couples solid science with personal anecdotes, and tempers cold hard facts with his informed opinions. Bibliographic endnotes document the text, yet scholarly research rarely impedes the flow of the narrative. While credentialed as an MD, Grinspoon is no stuffy pedantic academic. As an undergrad lit major and grad student in philosophy, this Medical Doctor taps into his creative inner writer.
Category: Non fiction reviews
A review of When the Night Comes Falling by Howard Blum
On one level, this is a sensationalistic book—in the acknowledgments, Blum exults in having gotten a screen deal—yet it is also a primer for penological, forensic, and judicial personnel seeking to refine their practices and steer clear of the pitfalls that drew out the efforts to nab a mass murderer, adding insult to injury for the victims’ families.
A review of Fall and Recovery by Joanne de Simone
The narrative also encapsulates what it’s like to feel excluded from the community at large, calling out the societal structures in place that demean people with disabilities. Reflecting on various schools and playgrounds, De Simone observes, “We had every right to be there, but I didn’t feel like we belonged.”
A review of The Braille Encyclopedia by Naomi Cohn
Neither The Braille Encyclopedia, nor Rebecca Solnit’s “Cyclopedia of an Arctic Expedition,” which influenced Cohn, are mere catalogues though. While Solnit comments on the act of remembrance, a travelogue about a vanishing place using the form’s citational structure, Cohn’s use resembles remembering itself. If the absence of this web structure is felt, it also highlights how the book is less about its valid critiques of legalistic definitions of blindness or a piquant connection between the Andean abacus-like Quipu and braille as devices where “stories were stored in arrangements of strands.”
A review of A Review of The Never End: The Other Orwell, the Cold War, the CIA, MI6, and the origin of Animal Farm by John Reed
Once upon a time, authors’ lives were separate from their works. Readers took the written work from the page. Today, that is not the case. Life and art are inextricably entwined for public consumption. Often, I question the wisdom of this, but in Orwell’s case, it’s valid. Animal Farm is political, and it is reasonable to explore Orwell’s life in order to see the novel in context.
A Review of Penultimates: The Now & the Not-Yet by Thomas Farber
Farber rarely lets the reader take a breath through the entire collection. Whether he’s starting his explorations with “Re William Blake (1757-1827)” or “Neighbors” or “School Days,” there’s every chance he’ll segue to another seemingly unrelated topic, although he generally connects them in the end.
A review of Getting to Know Death: A Meditation by Gail Godwin
She jumps back and forth, including a scholarly essay, poems and sayings by literary figures, and tributes to significant people in her life, both past and present. Indirectly, she offers suggestions as to how to handle our loved-ones’ deaths, and ultimately, our own.
A review of Write Like a Man by Ronnie A. Grinberg
Still, despite occasional over-interpretation, this is a valuable, well-researched and highly readable account of an important chapter of American intellectual life. These individuals lived fascinating lives and had far-reaching impact on American culture.
A review of Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement’s Ground War to End Democracy by Isaac Arnsdorf
The fanaticism of the MAGA conservatives rests on cynicism and conspiracy, a fundamental belief that the world (the Republican party, Democrats, Hollywood elites, paper shredding trucks) is out to get them, to squeeze their voice—and their vote—from existence. In their view, the only way to fight this grand conspiracy is through a ferocious commitment to ideology and an organized grassroots movement, sponsored by MyPillow.
A review of Zero at the Bone by Christian Wiman
Poetry gives suffering form, and giving suffering form is an antidote to despair. Yet content matters, too. For Wiman, much confessionalism is “an idolatry of suffering…an outrage that no person (or group) has suffered as we have, or simply a solipsistic withdrawal that leaves us maniacally describing every detail of our cells.