In Lust We Trust: The Blackest Eye by the music band Aye Nako

Every generation asks and answers its own questions—and those become culture, history. Aye Nako’s The Blackest Eye considers how matters of self are shaped by world matters—especially regarding class, race, gender, and sexuality. “Leaving the Body” has a fast, thrashing introduction, churning, dense, spinning, with lyrics in which a narrator recognizes bad influence but also claims her own spoilage.

Interview with Sharon Nir

The author of The Opposite of Comfortable: The Unlikely Choices of an Immigrant Career Woman talks about the writing of her first book and the challenges it presented, the grueling process of skilled worker immigration to the U.S. and the choices she had to make, whether it was worth the pain, the surprises, her target market, her new work in progress, and lots more.

A review of Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

Gilbert’s book – so full of soundbites it’s almost impossible not to begin quoting it immediately – urges readers to pursue a creative life, without becoming bogged down by questions of talent, and by all-pervasive fear. Creativity is its own end, and Gilbert suggests that it’s the birthright of all human beings. So clear and compelling is Gilbert’s argument, that, after reading Big Magic, it feels greedy not to write; guilty not to paint; wrong to let one’s creativity submerge into the busyness of life’s daily demands.

A review of The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless by Ahmet Zappa

Ahmet Zappa has created a refreshingly child friendly story certain to tempt the middle grade target audience. Characters and situations including Guide Mr. Devilstone, the egomaniac one-eyed coyote who wears a monster alarm, the Enotslived Diamond, around his neck, Ms. Monstranomicon a live monster manual who is more kindhearted than horrific, and the McFearless clan itself are appealing, engaging and likeable.

Arsen Petrosyan’s Charentsavan: Music for Armenian Duduk

The roots of Armenian music are ancient—and its past is told in its stories of country and city, and in its melodies and rhythms, and by the instruments—cornet, drum, cymbal—that have been found by accident or excavation, as well as in the notes others have made in texts and paintings. The music, a folk art, is yet known for its singular voice—out of many, one. Of course, a classical art—an art of notation and study, of theory and excellence—began to be born too.

A review of Tesserae by Mathias B Freese

Freese weaves a narrative rich in human frailty and humanity. His reflections regarding life, affection and the way we all change and become who we are now, may serve to motivate the reader toward exploring and perhaps setting down memories for themselves. Freese’s writing is distinctive and well-written with universal appeal. Tesserae is a work to be read and perhaps re-read, for the perceptions it offers into memory and the nature of the self.