Coupled with our ability to distance ourselves with the hugs that we instinctively give our children when we put down the book after each story — is that awful sense of recognition – the realisation that they aren’t so alien after all. These are grey shades of humanity that aren’t so foreign, though we might like to think so. It’s scary and eye opening. This is a powerful collection of stories, that manages to toe the line between postmodern and classic.
A review of Why She Loves Him by Wendy James
Coupled with our ability to distance ourselves with the hugs that we instinctively give our children when we put down the book after each story — is that awful sense of recognition – the realisation that they aren’t so alien after all. These are grey shades of humanity that aren’t so foreign, though we might like to think so. It’s scary and eye opening. This is a powerful collection of stories, that manages to toe the line between postmodern and classic.
A review of Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics by Igor Khmelnitsky
Igor Khmelnitsky’s Chess Exam and Training Guide: Tactics is a brilliant diagnostic tool. If you love tactics and combinations, you will love the book. And as you work through the test positions, you will assess your tactical skill, learn a lot and be royally entertained.
A review of The Chess Assassin’s Business Manual: Stories and Methods by Bob Long
For anyone thinking of starting a chess-related business, there is much of substance here; moreover, often a page will have side-notes or glosses on the main text. Digressions (a good thing, in my view: Laurence Sterne built his reputation, or at any rate his masterpiece, on them) are plentiful and rarely fail to amuse or instruct.
PURE MUSIC (I Want to Talk About You): the work of Christian McBride and Inside Straight (Kind of Brown), the Steve Kuhn Trio (Mostly Coltrane), and Roman Street (Amore)
Gorgeous horn-playing echoes the blues in “Spiritual,” a contemplation of the spirit that does not deny the sensual (however, the tumult near the end could be wailing—the naked complaint, the shameless call for divine help); and Steve Kuhn’s “Trance,” which completes the album, is a quiet piano piece, yet able to evoke dimensions.
All Hail: Irma Thomas, The Soul Queen of New Orleans: 50th Anniversary Celebration
Circumstances can call forth a deeper response from a person, from an artist. Irma Thomas takes the traditional song “Another Man Done Gone” and adapts it to life in hurricane country, giving it a rustling beat, and with new words turning it into a news report and a lament.
One Man’s Deep Disturbance: The Skating Rink, a novel by Roberto Bolano
There is a scintillating splendor and a bustling rhythm in “Rainbow Wheel,” with warm long lines of sound from the saxophone, and piano notes amid a quiet interlude, bubbling vibes, and the solitary, subtle quality of the bass. It sounds terribly romantic but “Starbeam” seems music of virtue, music that heals rather than hurts.
A review of Hancock’s Half Hour – The Very Best Episodes: Vol. 3
There’s something quite exciting about the live quality of this show, and it is even more powerful now when we’ve all become used to technological sophistication and smooth packaging in our listening.
Surprising, Thrilling, Troubling: Jericho’s Fall, a novel by Stephen L. Carter
The novel moves fast through conversations and acts, featuring intriguing characters, and often there is believable emotional weight as well as interesting political speculations. Carter’s use of language (in narrative and dialogue) is at a high-level with only of few points of stiffness.
Early American Life, and Slavery: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Edward P. Jones’s The Known World
It is a book about civility and savagery, intelligence and stupidity, love and hatred: life and death. It also concerns a theme that may be as timeless: what children do not understand about parents, especially their acts, as well as feelings, within the treacherous churnings of history (thoughtful concern can look like indifference).