Shakespeare writes about human emotion and impulse in a heightened realm, a realm of people with liberty and power, people of mind and passionate expression. Shakespeare gives us a language that is complex, eloquent, and true, a language to savor.
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Masterchef Julie Goodwin on 20/20 Meals
Masterchef and author of 20/20 Meals Julie Goodwin talks about her new cookbook, about her journey from being a keen home cook to becoming a Masterchef and of making a business out of cooking, about the way in which food is…
A review of We Walk Alone by Mariah E. Wilson
The poems in We Walk Alone by Mariah E. Wilson, remind me of the great writer John Edgar Wideman’s description of one of his characters in his Damballah. Wideman writes, “He has the gift of feeling. Things don’t touch him, they imprint.” Wilson, too, has the gift of feeling. Things don’t touch her, they imprint. For evidence, read her poetry.
A review of On Leave By Daniel Anselme
Anselme’s approach is to dig deep into the attitudes and motivations of three soldiers who are home on leave, let loose in Paris for a week or two. He shows us the distance between civilians safely ensconced at home and combatants who are fighting an unpopular war – a situation we have since come to know only too well. For sure, there is no sanctuary: these three guys may as well be ghosts, they’re on their own. Adrift from lovers, friends and family.
A review of 20/20 Meals by Julie Goodwin
Goodwin fans will particularly enjoy the non-pretentious and warm presentation of good home cooking. Goodwin makes it clear that you don’t need to study for years to be able to cook high quality food for your family. Anyone can, and should do it, and the recipes and tips in this book will certain encourage that.
We have a copy of RETURN TO OAKPINE by Ron Carlson to giveaway. To win, just sign up for our Free Newsletter.
The winner will be drawn on the first of December 2014 from subscribers who enter via the newsletter. Good luck!
A review of There Once Lived a Mother Who Loved Her Children Until They Moved Back In by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya
If you have any familiarity with Russian culture, Russian people, or if you step back just for a moment from some of the intensity of the exchanges between the characters that people her stories, you sense a thread of humour, of warmth, of great compassion about the passing nonsense we call life.
A review of A World Elsewhere by Sigrid MacRae
At six, newly arrived in the United States from Germany, young Sigrid von Hoynigen-Huene was called a “Nazi” by a schoolmate. As a child and teenager, she blamed the father she had never known for her feelings of not belonging. Although Heinrich von Hoynigen-Huene, who died in July 1941, was an “iconic presence” when she was growing up, the “family lore” about him troubled her.
The Free Mind of a Man in Captivity: Twelve Years A Slave, Book and Film
The director Steve McQueen has turned the book Twelve Years A Slave into the film 12 Years a Slave, interpreting Solomon Northup’s story with accuracy, exquisite craft, and significant understanding. What makes 12 Years A Slave remarkable are the consciousness, skill, and experience of Solomon Northup, his being an embodiment not of potential but of actual value—value (valued formed by liberty, knowledge, accomplishment, and family relations) that was denied by those who captured him.
Jeri Kroll on Workshopping the Heart
The author of Vanishing Point, and Workshopping the Heart reads from and talks about her latest books of poetry, about the transition from poetry to drama, the relationship between poetry and theatre, about her protagonist Diana, on writing about anorexia, about family…