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.
Category: Non fiction reviews
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.
A review of Writing True Stories (2nd Ed) by Patti Miller
Throughout Writing True Stories Miller uses the perfect tone – clear and simple but never patronising or dumbed-down. The book always makes the assumption that everyone is the best expert on their own story and we are all beginners when facing the blank page.
The Garden Against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
Throughout The Garden Against Time, Laing returns to the concepts of gates and walls: while she sees the need for secrecy, or at least privacy, as having been crucial for the formation of what she calls a queer “counter-state” (213) in the face of oppression, she is well aware that borders and barriers to access are tools of oppression as well.
A review of How We Became Post-Liberal by Russell Blackford
Blackford’s knowledge is wide-reaching and he constructs his arguments carefully, with evidence that encompasses history, law, and philosophy, making it clear that the first step in combating intolerance is to understand how and why it arises.
A review of Beyond the Shores by Tamara J Walker
A review of A Fire at the Center by Karen Van Fossan
What Van Fossan delivers is life—a progress report on a directed but unfinished life, painfully acquainted with ambiguity and exquisitely cast in vibrant minimalist prose. Ultimately, the shadow of the book left in the reader’s mind is neither bound wrists nor angry fist but palms, unchastened, reverently touching.
A review of Boat Girl by Melanie Neale
From the day she was born Melanie was certain how fell about the boat. Melanie knew she “fell in love with the 47’ fiberglass sailboat the day I came aboard from the hospital” (Neale 1). She continued to share a deep connection with the boat as she aged, she spent most of her life on it, the bond and memories that came from those experiences stayed with her till the end of the memoir.